Garden furniture guide

What outlasts a British winter

Garden furniture divides into the kind that ages and the kind that expires. The difference is not price, and it is visible on the label if you know the four words to look for.

Two materials age. The rest have a lifespan

Hardwood weathers. Teak and Robinia left outside go from honey to silver over a couple of seasons, and that silver is a surface: sand it, oil it, and the wood underneath is the wood you bought. Skagerak say it plainly of their untreated FSC teak, that it develops a silvery patina over time. The furniture is not deteriorating, it is changing colour.

Aluminium, acrylic rope and PE rattan do not age, they endure and then fail. They are genuinely weatherproof and genuinely maintenance-free, and when the weave eventually goes chalky or splits there is nothing to sand back to. Vincent Sheppard weave acrylic rope around an aluminium frame; Garden Trading's dearest set in our listing is specified simply as PE rattan.

Neither is the wrong choice. But one of them is a thirty-year purchase that asks for an hour of work a year, and the other is a ten to fifteen year purchase that asks for nothing, and the price tag will not tell you which you are holding.

Untreated FSC teak goes silver over time rather than degrading. Heal's
Acrylic rope is woven around an aluminium frame. Heal's
The dearest set in our listing is specified as PE rattan. Garden Trading

The four words worth finding on a label

Grade A teak. The term describes heartwood from the centre of the trunk, which carries the highest natural oil content and the tightest grain, and it is the reason two teak benches at very different prices are genuinely different objects. Case use it for the Tanso range.

FLEGT licensed. This is a documented legal-origin chain for the timber rather than a general sustainability sentiment, and Garden Trading state it on their teak. Where a maker says only sustainably sourced, they have told you their intention rather than their paperwork.

Mortise and tenon. A joint cut into the wood rather than screwed through it, and on Garden Trading's Avon table those joints are also dowelled and pegged. This is the detail that decides whether a table is still square in year ten, and almost nobody puts it in a headline.

Robinia. Also sold as black locust, and the quiet alternative to teak: harder than teak, rot-resistant without treatment, and usually cheaper because the name means nothing to most buyers.

Case specify Grade A teak for the Tanso range. Heal's
Garden Trading state their teak is FLEGT licensed. Garden Trading
The Avon table's joints are cut, dowelled and pegged rather than screwed. Garden Trading

The cushions are the real lifespan

On any set with upholstery, the frame is not what wears out. Kettler say of their Kubu dining set that the cushions must not get wet and should be stored dry when not in use, which is the honest condition on almost every cushioned set sold in Britain.

So the question to ask of a lounge or dining set is not how weatherproof it is. It is where the cushions will live from October to April, and whether you will actually carry them there twice a year for a decade. If the answer is no, buy hardwood and add a cushion you do not mind replacing, or buy a set whose seat is the structure rather than a pad.

Kettler require the cushions to be kept dry and stored when not in use. John Lewis

Acacia is the rung below, and it is honest about it

Acacia is the most common hardwood at the cheap end and it is a real hardwood, naturally weather-resistant and genuinely good value. It is also softer and less oily than teak, which is why John Lewis advise storing their acacia bench indoors over the winter or covering it when the weather turns.

Follow that advice and acacia is excellent for the money. Ignore it for five British winters and the furniture will tell you. The mistake is not buying acacia, it is buying acacia and treating it like teak.

John Lewis advise storing their acacia bench indoors over winter, or covering it in wet weather. John Lewis

What an hour a year actually buys

Teak needs nothing to survive. It needs teak oil only if you would rather keep the honey colour than let it go silver, which Garden Trading put exactly that way. That is the whole maintenance regime for the furniture that lasts longest: one afternoon, optionally, for cosmetic reasons.

This is the part that surprises people who assume hardwood is the high-maintenance option. The low-maintenance materials are the ones with an expiry date. The high-maintenance one is a bench you oil if you feel like it.

Teak oil is recommended to feed the wood rather than required to protect it. Garden Trading
Teak resists weather well enough to be left outdoors. Garden Trading

Buying it in October

One practical note from building this category. The season runs out long before the weather does: when we priced it in mid October, John Lewis's garden department had largely left their sitemap, two of the pieces we wanted were already discontinued and one was out of stock, while the teak specialists carried their full range on pre-order with delivery dates in late February.

That is the right time to buy hardwood and the wrong time to buy anything you want to sit on this month. If you are furnishing for next summer, ordering in autumn against a February delivery is both cheaper and better stocked than waiting for May.

Garden furniture we have judged for this

Researched 2026-10-20. Prices are what the retailer asked on that date.