Top woodworking tasks for your garden

Now the Summer months are upon us, it’s time to get started on those woodworking task you’ve been putting off all year so you can enjoy them in your garden.

In this guide, we’ve pooled our expertise and come up these top five woodworking tasks, all varying in difficulty and easily adaptable – whether you’re an old-timer or woodworking newcomer.

Birdhouse

Birdhouses are a great way of attracting nature into your garden whilst giving you a fun woodwork project. Building a birdhouse can be designed around your level of skill and range from very basic bird houses to elaborate designs, making this woodcraft suitable for beginners and a great way of starting woodworking as a hobby. There are also plenty of free templates available online to make designing your birdhouse much easier or alternatively give you some inspiration for designing your own. This task also allows you to experiment with different finishes as they can be decorated however you choose.

A variety of woods can be used for this project and you can choose a wood which best suits your budget however durability needs to be taken into consideration as the wood needs to withstand the weather. Birdhouses can also be useful for using up scrap wood from other projects, but be careful not to use chemically treated woods as these can be harmful for the birds.

Raised Garden Beds

Raised beds provide effective drainage and a barrier to slugs and other garden pests making them ideal to grow your own produce. Building raised beds yourself is relatively simple and less fiddly than smaller projects such as birdhouses. To make this project slightly easier you can purchase premade corner braces to simplify the construction process. Naturally rot resistant woods are recommended for this project to prevent decay, types of cedar are usually considered the most suitable. If you choose to use your garden beds for producing fresh food check the wood has not been chemically treated as this may affect your produce.

Benches

Building a bench requires slightly more skill as it needs to be built accurately to be sturdy enough to hold weight for use. This project again can be altered to best suit your level of woodworking, such as adding backs or arm rests or simply making a stool style bench. Rot resistant and durable woods are best for this project such as cedar, redwood, acacia and cypress, benches can also be stained or painted to suit your personal style.

Planters

Planters are a useful way to contain your gardening due to their portability and preventing garden weeds and pests from harming your plants. Planters are slightly different to garden beds as they also have a wooden base and are usually smaller in size. Planters come in a variety of styles and sizes from basic open top boxes to raised planters with legs and can be designed around your preference. The wood used should again be rot resistant however by lining the inside of the planters with plastic it will help preserve the wood from moisture.

Pergolas

Pergolas are a more ambitious woodworking task but can create a beautiful feature piece for your garden. The standard design for a pergola has a flat wooden panelled open roof however there are many twists on this design such as adding roof tiles or a wooden roof to provide shelter. The most important quality in the type of wood for your pergola is durability, again cedars and redwood are great choices but cheaper woods with finishes added can also be just as durable and weather resistant.

And you?

Woodworking can be a relaxing and interesting hobby which also provides you with a useful skill and there are plenty of woodworking projects which can be the perfect addition to your garden.

So if you’ve got any woodworking projects for the garden you’d like to share, fire over a tweet.

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