Garden Outdoor Answers · The Honest Care Decision Layer
Independent, UK-focused guidance on caring for garden and outdoor furniture — what teak, rattan, metal and plastic actually need, and when it's worth repairing versus letting go. Not a brand pushing its own care range.
Three questions worth answering in order — before you buy the wrong product or bin something that was worth saving.
Teak, rattan, metal and plastic all fail and get cared for differently. Our material-by-material decision map covers clean vs oil vs seal vs cover vs repair vs replace for each.
What's safe on plastic can strip teak's protective layer or force water into a rattan weave. Our safe cleaning guide explains why, not just what to buy.
Covers, storage and timing all matter more than people think — and a bad cover can leave furniture wetter than no cover at all. Our winterising guide covers the honest version.
29 guides covering the practical decisions UK garden furniture owners actually face.
Teak, rattan/resin-weave, metal and plastic each degrade and get cared for differently — the decision map that anchors every other guide on this site.
See the guides → 🧽Safe cleaning methods, algae and mould removal, pressure washer guidance by material, and cushion cleaning that doesn't ruin the filling.
See the guides → 🌧️Cover vs store vs oil, whether covers actually cause mould, and how to protect furniture from UK rain without baking it in plastic.
See the guides → 🔧Rattan weave repair, loose bolts and wobbly frames, glass table tops, and cast aluminium — honest limits on what's actually fixable.
See the guides → 🛋️Cleaning, waterproofing and winter storage that delays replacement — never a push toward the cushion-replacement shopping aisle.
See the guides → 🛢️Which oil for which wood, furniture cleaner vs washing-up liquid, rust converters, starter kits — and what we'd skip.
See the guides →Search "how to clean garden furniture" or "teak oil vs leave it to silver" and you'll mostly find a furniture brand's own care PDF, a retailer's buying guide, or a general household site covering the topic in a couple of paragraphs. Nobody neutral is helping you work out whether your specific set is worth oiling, covering, repairing, or simply letting go.
Garden Outdoor Answers exists to be that neutral voice. Every guide reasons from mechanism — why teak silvers instead of rotting, why a cheap cover with no ventilation can grow more mould than no cover at all, why rattan fails first at the tightest bends — rather than repeating a manufacturer's own care leaflet. We're not Barker & Stonehouse, we're not Kettler, and we're not selling our own furniture range. Where a manufacturer's advice is genuinely right, we say so; where it's written to sell more of their own oil, we say that too.
The things worth having sorted before you spend on oil, covers or a replacement set — so you don't repeat the mistakes that ruin most garden furniture early.