This was a trick I thought might work and It wouldn't require scraping off the old coconut or repainting as is usual. With this technique what I did was to over paint the existing coconut with an artists product, Liquatex Matte Liquid Medium is usually used in acrylic painting to thin and help make a matte finish. They also make a gloss medium which is often used over acrylics instead of shellac or varnish over completed painting's. My mother used it to help build depth in her paintings by using it as a glaze (with an appropriate color).
In this application My intent was to eliminate a couple of steps in restoration by painting this directly over the existing coconut as it wasn't in terribly bad condition but just needed some fresh coconut. In this first photo you can see how I did it. The little cup held the Liquatex and I painted it on a side or panel at a time and sprinkled the coconut on that side generously. As you can see I tapped off the left over orange coconut on the pre folded piece of paper which can then be put back in the zipper bag.

The Liquatex worked great saving much time. BUT it isn't a cure all In this section you can see the base before I mounted the house too it. And even though I had put white coconut over the Liquatex on the fence it didn't show up well enough so I used white paint and put coconut over that and it shows very well now.

Notice the mass of different samples of Pete's coconut. It REALLY takes a lot of different colors as it is often necessary to mix two or even more shades of coconut to get the desired effect. Such was the case with the color of the roof and fences. I have enough variety now that I don't always have to wait to get materials before starting restoration.

Another great job. Did you do the luffa tree from scratch? Also, have you tried cat hair to add texture?

The tree IS from scratch and used Mod Podge on it with white paint to replicate the thick gesso paint they often used. As to your second question. Only in the food!