homosassa

Life in Homosassa, Florida

Butterfly Garden

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Butterfly Garden
Purple Coneflower. I’ve tried to grow coneflowers in other colors but they only last for the one season and don’t reseed. The purple coneflowers come back every year and spread.
In the garden
Black Eyed Susan. This is another flower that reseeds itself and returns year after year.
In the garden
Palamedes Swallowtail
In the garden
Purple Coneflowers and Black Eyed Susan
Butterfly Garden
Gult Fritillary on a Blue Indigo Spire. This is a salvia and another very hardy butterfly attractor. I accidentally broke a stem off of another spire so stuck it in the ground and here it is!
Butterfly Garden
Cosmos. The orange and yellow varieties reseed and take over. I’ve tried other colors with no success.
Butterfly Garden
Hamelia Patens or Firebush. Both hummingbirds and butterflies love this plant. It is not very cold hardy. I planted this one last spring and we had a mild winter so it did come back. I usually treat them as annuals.
Butterfly Garden
Chinese Pagoda Plant. Vera gave me this about 3 years ago and it finally bloomed this year.

Outdoor Living Project

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I love to sew and create things but also love to be outside working in my gardens and yard. We’ve had a LOT of rain in the past month and I have been forced to stay indoors.  So I look at it as an opportunity and went back to updating my outdoor furniture that I started on last year.  Here’s the post that references the original changes: https://ktgreendesign.com//a-finished-project/

The next step in the project was to recover the two cushioned dining chairs.  I bought good-quality chairs thinking that they’d last longer, but the upholstery on them turned nasty right away.  Since the covers couldn’t be removed, I cleaned them with a scrub brush and oxi-clean.  When they were hopelessly pilled and not coming clean I decided something had to be done.  So I recovered the cushions with this cute chevron fabric that matches the sofa and chair. It’s a fabric from Premier Prints that I bought from fabric.com.  The covers on all of the furniture is removable since I used velcro on the cushions so I can wash them whenever necessary.  Accidents happen!  Especially when those grandkids visit!

Patio Project
Love these chairs!
Patio Project
Added another pillow to the sofa. It just needed a little more padding for my reading pleasure!
Patio Project
Another cute little pillow for this chair.  See that sweet little flamingo table? My friend Donna did that mosaic. And she doesn’t do mosaics anymore. So sad. She was so talented. And I need more mosaics!
Patio Project
Here’s the entire set!
Patio Project
This is Maggie’s favorite spot!

While I’m done with the screened room, we have a huge deck that covers the entire back of our house.  There is a little alcove by our bedroom that has some furniture that is crying for new cushions.  Will I ever be done?  Hopefully not!

 

 

Island Dogs

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We take cocktail cruises out to Mason Creek and turn around just past Petty Creek.  At that juncture, there is an island inhabited by three really really big dogs.  We haven’t seen their people.  Could they be there by themselves–surviving by their own wits and survival skills?

Dogs in the Hood
Danger! Sound the alert. Trespassers!
Dogs in the Hood
It’s that Fat Jack, a tasty appetizer! Quick untie the boat!
Dogs in the Hood
Untie the boat, how am I supposed to do that?
Dogs in the Hood
Whatta ya mean, you don’t have thumbs! You have got to come up with a new excuse!
Dogs in the Hood
Pheww, that was a close one!