Choosing Between a Metal or Wooden Garden Bench

Any hobbyist who truly lives and breathes his or her passions will naturally be very steadfast in their particular stances regarding anything to do with their craft. Gardeners are no exception. They say that a man's home is his kingdom. With that nugget of information, one can safely say that a man's yard is his country, and trying to tell this man how he should decorate his lawn or patio is akin to telling Henry VIII to try and work things out with his wife. At any rate, the fodder for much debate comes down to the choice between furnishing the garden or patio with a wooden garden bench or a metal one.

A wooden garden bench naturally carries with it benefits that a metal bench can't hope to emulate. The most obvious and striking feature, of course, would be that a wooden bench looks so much more natural and inviting amidst the trees, shrubbery, and other aspects of nature. Unfortunately, this also is the cause of a major shortcoming on the part of wood garden benches: Insects. Termites, ants, spiders, and all manner of crawling colonizers will see your well-placed furnishing as a potential home for offspring they inexplicably wish to produce. There is nothing wrong with producing offspring, of course, but insects haven't the mental capability to know exactly why they do so. The concept is wasted on them, as is the idea that you don't particularly want those insects to destroy your pretty new wooden garden bench. Unfortunately, your pleading will fall on deaf ears and selfish thoraxes. Naturally, a metal bench may become an invitation to a spiderweb or two but interference from nature will be avoided much more easily.

Aside from the damage insects cause to a wooden garden bench, we mustn't leave out perhaps an even more pervasive element: weather. Time and Weather are a frightful team that will render even the hardiest of man-made creations back into the dust from whence they came. Obviously, wood will be the first to go. This is yet another example of metal's dominance over wood when it comes to decorating your garden or lawn. All the same, praise for metal will do little to dissuade a wood aficionado from choosing a beautiful teak wood garden bench or similarly strong and dependable wood piece of furniture. There are better woods than others and they can keep the aesthetic beauty of woodcraft without succumbing to the elements half as easily. In the end, this may be seen as the only logical choice. While you will be paying more for a teak bench or something of the like, you will definitely see that piece of furniture last a decade longer than your "garden variety" wooden bench, if you'll pardon the pun. No? Pun withdrawn.