The furniture that we buy for rooms in our home and those which we buy for our patios are most certainly not the same.

For instance the furniture that we have inside our homes has no need to be proofed for extreme weather, damp and cold.

Patio furniture doesn’t have to match perfectly with its surroundings as there are so many colours already in a garden.

Saying that, there are features of patio furniture that need to be sorted out, such as how it will be treated to save it from harsh weather conditions.

Perhaps the most commonly used material for patio furniture is cedar wood.

There is a huge amount of advantages that cedar has over other types of wood.

Firstly cedar wood is an all-natural material, taken from the cedar tree which grows in the Mediterranean and Himalaya mountains.

The way that the wood grain lies (in almost tubular structures) means that when it is in wet conditions the rain runs through or over it, rather than getting absorbed and causing the wood to become swollen.

The unique smell that comes from cedar wood is caused by the natural resin which it creates to repel insects such as lice which eat and damage the wood.

Wet and damp weather conditions cause rot, which is where the resin also plays a part to prevent this from happening.

Most cedar wood furniture is also treated with a varnish that makes it last even longer in damp weather conditions, stopping the colour from fading in sunlight too.

One of the most recently developed materials used in making outdoor patio furniture is recycled plastic or ‘polyresin’ material.

This eco-friendly way to decorate your garden doesn’t look bad either and polyresin furniture has been developed so that it can be made into almost any shape, size, texture and colour.

Polyresin furniture is different to wood when it gets wet because it can be wiped dry with a cloth without soaking up some of the moisture and staying damp as wood tends to do.

Polyresin warms up considerably when it’s placed directly in the sun, but the colour of the material never fades due to exposure as others do.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of having polyresin furniture in your garden is that you can rest assured that it wasn’t necessary to chop down trees to make it.

For an easy and enjoyable way of recycling polyresin furniture is ideal, it lasts for years and isn’t expensive either.

Last but not least there are patio furniture pieces made from cast iron and brushed aluminium.

Compared to polyresin, the ways in which they are made certainly aren’t green, but the material is the most weather resistant.

Brushed aluminium furniture is scratch free and just as light, if not lighter in weight than polyresin furniture.

Cast iron on the other hand is extremely heavy, making it a better choice for those who want all-year patio furniture that will never get blown away or knocked over by the wind as aluminium may.

Cast iron, cedar wood, aluminium and polyresin patio furniture are all very different to each other both in features and in the benefits that they give the owner.

As a result it’s up to each buyer to carefully consider which material would be best for their garden.

Tags: furniture, garden, gardening

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 8th, 2009 at 3:59 am and is filed under garden furniture, gardening, outdoor furniture, patio furniture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.