With warmer weather on the way, now is the perfect time to start getting your home and garden organised for summer. Winter can leave your outdoor spaces a little worse for wear, but if you want to have glorious get-togethers this season, then it’s time to get cleaning. Luckily, there’s a cheap and easy way to spruce up your outdoor furniture – and it’s likely you already have the ingredients you need in your pantry.
Peter Mortin, gardening expert at Crane Garden Buildings has offered his best advice on how to clean your patio, outdoor furniture and fences ready for a summer of garden parties and barbecues. He said: “After a full winter of bugs, birds and wild animals venturing into gardens, it is often recommended to give ‘socialising surfaces’ in your garden a thorough clean.
“If you have any wooden surfaces in your garden, particularly decking and furniture, it is best to stick to soapy water and a soft brush or sponge. Any harsher chemicals will damage the wood surface, leading to splintering and staining.”
For those wanting to get their garden as clean as possible, without the harsh chemical nasties in many commercial cleaning products the solution is simple.
Peter said: “For patios, one of the most effective solutions for cleaning is white vinegar. You should mix it beforehand with an equal amount of water, and then pour/spray it over your patio stones.
“This should be left to soak for a maximum of half an hour, before scrubbing the stones and rinsing it away with generous amounts of water.”
If there are still unsightly stains on your decking, then the next option is to use a pressure washer to blast away dirt and algae from your patio.
The concentrated jets will rid the space of dirt and grime without needing thorough hand scrubbing so it’ll save your knees and joints from the harsh work of hand scrubbing, and leave you ready to socialise all through the summer.
