With the warm weather approaching, now is the perfect time to begin preparing your garden furniture for the summer months. Here’s a guide on how to do so.
Clean thoroughly
If your furniture has been protected by covers over the winter, a minimal clean with a damp cloth may be all that’s required, but if your furniture has been exposed to the elements, you’ll need to work a little harder to remove any build-up of moss, twigs and leaf matter.
Eliminating any trace of bird droppings is vital, as the high acidity can be very corrosive. Use a soft brush to remove debris, and then clean with a weak solution of washing up liquid and water. Avoid using any strong cleaning agent, as this might damage any protective coating.
For open-weave rattan, you’ll need to get into the spaces between the woven fibres with a small soft brush – try a toothbrush for the hard-to-reach corners and a nail brush for the seat, backs and arms. For previously oiled wooden furniture, make sure you use a lint-free cloth to avoid fibres catching on any rough sections.
While you may be tempted to just blast away the dirt with a jet washer, resist! High-pressure water jets might give you a quick result, but as well as removing the dirt, you’ll also be compromising the protective coating, and you risk damaging your wood grain, causing rusting of your metal frame or worse – blasting a hole in the softer fabric of your furniture.
Fix any damage
Turn your furniture upside down when cleaning so you can check the state of the legs, lower joints and any exposed metal framing. If your furniture has been standing on grass, make sure the feet haven’t succumbed to water damage, and consider buying protective plastic feet covers, which offer a low-cost way to avoid future problems.
Sand down problem areas of wooden furniture before treating with a preservative and paint any rust patches on metal furniture with a specialist paint. For wrought-iron-style benches and chairs, spray painting speeds up the process. Simply clear a space on the lawn, cover the area with plastic and release your inner Banksy!
Apply an extra layer of protection
Wooden garden furniture is usually pre-treated, but adding an annual layer of protection lengthens its lifespan. Sunlight causes drying and fading, so a nourishing oil like linseed, or a specialist teak oil, applied with a lint free cloth helps to restore the depth of colour of your wood. Make sure the furniture is thoroughly dry before application, and choose a rain-free day so that the oil has time to absorb fully.
Treat synthetic rattan and aluminium furniture with a specialist water shield spray, and for fixed fabric seats, a Scotchguard treatment spray is a sensible idea.
Protecting the cushions on your garden furniture can be a challenge. Even if your cushions are advertised as waterproof, the truth is that any soft furnishings will degrade if left outside permanently, however well you treat them with a waterproofing agent. The best solution is to bring cushions inside for the winter and to invest in lightweight covers for rainy days through the spring and summer.
Garden furniture is an investment, and it makes sense to protect it, so get your cleaning, repairing and protecting done now to enjoy a trouble-free summer.
