Garden Seating

After the hard work is done in the garden, don't forget to sit down and enjoy the fruits of your labour. Hopefully you have planned for several seating areas in amongst your shrubs and flowers to enjoy, the sun, the shade  and the views.
Through the years we have enjoyed a variety of chairs and benches. Living in Muskoka the standard is of course the classic Muskoka chair, or Aidrondack, if you are from the USA. The low slung seat with the wide arms encourages prolonged relaxing  in the garden with drink and book or tablet at hand.

Many years ago we made a full set of willow or twig furniture. Over the course of  a few workshops we created a chair, chaise lounge, love seat and a side table. Once we bought cushins for the chair we found that we sat a little high. Learning from that first experience we built our love seat a few inches lower to allow correct sitting height with the comfortable cushin.
We did such a good job on the love seat that it was stolen, cushins and all from our Victorian veranda one summers evening. Next summer we decided to make a style change and sold the remaining twig furniture at a yard sale and moved on to the new resin material "wicker" furniture which suited well our century home  but offered long term durability.

For us, the classic garden seating has to be the English style teak bench.  After many vacations in England,visiting gardens this has to be the perfect garden bench. Who better then the English to create a stylish durable bench for enjoying your garden year round. Teak is known for its natural weather resistence, changing over the years to a soft silver colour. As a woodworker I know that the high natural oil content, its tensile strength and tight grain make it an ideal material for outdoor furniture.
Grown in tropical climates around the world it is important that furniture builders buy only teak  from managed forests. Look for FSC, Forest Stewardship Council certification when you buy any teak or other tropcial wood product. Visit www.fsc.org to learn the sustainable environmental standards imposed on the industry to obtain an FSC approval.
With the internet at your finger tips, the world is your shopping market. One source of FSC teak benches and other garden products can be found at www.hayesgardenworld.co.uk
They offer a good selection of quality products including the classic teak garden bench. The five foot model seems an ideal size  and teak will offer years of service in all climates. For some reason my computer won't let me attach a picture of the teak bench at present but where is a link to the picture of the five foot teak model.
http://www.hayesgardenworld.co.uk/sites/default/files/images/products/kingston-5ft.jpg
For those bargain shooper with foresight to next garden season, winter is a good time to look for gardenshopping on a budget and Hayes Garden World is no exception at offering sales in the winter. When I looked mid January there were loads of bargains to buy.
Happy shopping and gardening.