Which wood for garden?

What are you using the 'wood' for?

This will have a bearing on the advice that you are given.

Brian G

Hard to give a general answer for, as it depends on the size, the amount of "aging" that's acceptable, how long you want it to last, how much you want to spend, and whether you're going to bury it.

Good timbers to look at are larch or sweet chestnut. Larch is the general timber for framing work these days and lasts well owing to its high resin content making it simply waterproof. Dirt cheap too - probably the cheapest usable timber you can buy.

Chestnut is a hardwood, which is always an advantage for weatherproofing, and it's resistant to fungal attack. Better looking than softwoods too.

Growing them round edible things on.

I like Teak for outdoors, being highly resistant to outdoor effects. It's grown commercially now but still expensive.

yes unfortunately. Its for seating.

NT

See if you can get treated cedar. Easy to work. Otherwise red pine is the best for outdoor use as it absorbs preservative more easily than white (the stock builder's timber.)

I used English oak for that. Oak has been a managed timber since the days when it was vital to our shipbuilding industry and it is cost effective, if you take into account its life when compared to treated softwoods.

Colin Bignell

Where did the existing softwood come from, also were any cut ends treated too?

Softwood that is Tanalith-E treated should be fine, try a good timber merchants.

See also:

FWIW I have some treated 2x4 outdoors with the ends dipped in the above, no rot or softness after ~5 yrs.

cheers, Pete.

I really have no idea, but it was probably rock bottom cost stuff. It lasted maybe 10 years before disintegrating, and I want to do rather better this time. Its 2 x 1/2"

After reading the various suggestions offered, I realise I wouldnt know one wood species from another, have not the least faith in getting what I'm told it is, and really wouldnt know which of the suggestions to choose anyway. Nor where to go to buy anything other than spruce and pine. So I feel fairly clueless really.

I might end up going with that option, but its really not what I want.

NT

Try willow. I once remarked on the two willow trees growing on the fen drain bank to the landlord of the cottage I rented

"Ah yes..that were 1940..I cut two posts to make a chicken run and oi whacked they in, and the buggers took root and growed'

I really have no idea, but it was probably rock bottom cost stuff. It lasted maybe 10 years before disintegrating, and I want to do rather better this time. Its 2 x 1/2"

After reading the various suggestions offered, I realise I wouldnt know one wood species from another, have not the least faith in getting what I'm told it is, and really wouldnt know which of the suggestions to choose anyway. Nor where to go to buy anything other than spruce and pine. So I feel fairly clueless really.

I might end up going with that option, but its really not what I want.

NT

What the timber sounded like was roofing lath. It is an excellent choice for seating but the finish is rough.

It would be a simple enough job to put a nice finish on it though. (Well a reasonable one at least) Just buy an electric hand plane and take a little off the face and edges.

Then set the blade to very shallow cut by winding the body work in, then take a small arris off the top edges.

To get anything like the same durability for any other timber will require you to take them in for the winter and treat them every spring.

That 10 years use was due to the tanalising treatment they get. A baton like that in a roof will last indefinitely. They only fail after years of loose and cracked tiles allow the weather to get at them.

Pitch pine would have better rot resistance than cheap softwood because of the higher resin content. A reclaimers yard should have it, or even some oak too at much cheaper than new prices.

Another way might be to get some green oak, saw it up, remove any sapwood, air dry, plane it and use that. Bit of a labour of love though.

If you need fairly short small pieces it might worth getting a relatively knot free new oak sleeper and working around the knots. Try local garden centres, Ebay or phoning around any local sawmills.

cheers, Pete.

What are you making again? Could you rip down a new (untreated) oak railway sleeper?

You didn't say what sort of use you were considering. My guess is that most garden use could be with green oak (heart) or chestnut but there are issues, like splitting and movement, which mean these need a bit more thought if joinery is involved.

There is a publication in SE England, probably other regions as well, called woodlots, in there a lot of the small woodlanders with mobile saws advertise. You might find a useful one near to you who would let you have a bit. When we ran a mobile sawmill to supply oak for framing one of the bugs was the large volumes of sideboards we produced without a good market.

AJH

ah, thanks. I thought oak or cedar might last well, but I dont really know. I left this job for the mo and got on with other things, and now I've been offered some felled holly. Is this usable? IOW will it survive ok? I gather holly isnt too stable, but it is hardwood and its free.

I did think about planing a load of rough tanalised, would rather go with the holly if it'll last as well. Was thinking of splitting it instead of sawing.

NT

I have no idea. If it is treated properly it will last whatever the species. But tanalising is a pressure treatment. Merely painting preservative on the surface does very little unless you replace it every year.

Why not comb related newsgroups and see if it would be better giving it to someone with a lathe or something.

May I suggest that if you are going to plane tanalised timber, that you wear a mask. Otherwise you could ingest enough poison to make you ill.

ooh, hadnt thought of that.

One thing that stops me planing tanalised is that the preserved wood layer would probably just get planed off.

I give up! No way do I want to paint this thing each year.

NT