Tips to Weatherproof your Garden Furniture

At GardenStreet, we love Autumn. The change of seasons brings us stunning foliage, crisp warnings, and the reintroduction of the pumpkin flavoured coffees in our favourite coffee shops!

With the change of seasons, it also acts as a reminder to make sure that our garden furniture is weatherproofed and ready for winter.

But how do you protect your garden furniture? What, if any, action is needed? Typically garden furniture tends to be made of either a plastic/rattan, wood, or metal. Each of these requires a different type of care.

Wooden Furniture

Being a natural material, wooden products require treating to help protect from weathering and rot.

By applying a wood paint, stain, or preservative, it can help prolong the lifespan of your furniture.

We’d recommend applying a treatment to your wood every 6 months, but this can depend on local conditions (so may do this sooner if you live in a more exposed area). If you have not treated your wooden product before, it may be beneficial to lightly sand the product first prior to applying the treatment. This will remove any inconsistencies in the colour, and provide a better more effective surface to paint.

If you have pressure treated wood, this tends to live for around 10 years without additional treatment before the onset of rot. However applying a clear wood preserver can help to protect from UV damage, and slow down the natural greying and colour change of wood.

After treating your wooden product, we’d also recommend covering your wooden furniture set with a breathable fabric cover. By choosing a breathable fabric (so one with ventilation in the design), it reduces condensation from the air building up inside the cover, between your furniture and fabric. This helps to keep your set drier, thus helping protect from rot.

Metal Furniture

Most metal garden furniture tends to be made from either Aluminium or Steel. Our collection typically comes with a powder coated finish to the metal, which protects against rust.

Aluminium shouldn’t rust, but if you have an alloy which is susceptible to rusting (such as steel/iron), we’d recommend the following care.

Firstly, lightly sand down any areas which may have rusted, to remove the corroded flakes of metal. Once sanded, a specialist metal paint such a hammerite should be applied. This maintains a tough barrier to protect the metal from the elements. It may be worth considering painting the whole set, to maintain a consistent colour.

Again, once treated, we’d recommend covering with a breathable cover to protect your furniture.

Plastic Furniture & Polyrattan

Most rattan in the UK tends to by polyrattan, which is a plastic material. This is a versatile and durable material, which offers great protection from the elements.

It can be hosed down to be cleaned, and does not need to any additional protection/stain, as wood and metal does.

Our ranges of rattan furniture are UV treated (to protect from sun damage/discoulouring), and also have powder coated metal frames (for protection against rust).

We would recommend covering your set during winter with a breathable cover, which saves the task of cleaning the debris off in Spring.

For genuine rattan (such as cane or willow), this will need to be treated like wood. Treatment with a clear water based wood preserver would be recommended, ensuring full coverage between the gaps of each strand. Depending on local conditions, this may need to be done every 3-6 months.