Patio areas are very attractive in a garden for a number of reasons. They can give you an outdoor space for hosting gatherings such as barbecues for friends and family, they can act as a blank canvas against which you can install statement garden features such as a water fountain, and from a commercial perspective, they can even add value to your home. To make your patio feel like a functioning outdoor room, it can be a very good idea to add a structural element such as a pergola in the space. Wood is a popular choice for pergolas because the material is organic and has an aesthetic softness that something like metal lacks. But what kind of wood is best for your pergola?

Oregon timber

Oregon timber is a type of wood that originates from North America, but a great deal of it is harvested in New Zealand, making it a popular construction wood on this side of the world. For construction projects, this variety of wood is particularly appealing because of its low weight/high strength ratio. This makes it easy to handle for big projects, while creating robust structures. Because of this, you might want to choose Oregon timber supplies for your pergola if you are attempting to build your pergola yourself.

As with any timber, you will have to protect your Oregon timber from wet rot, particularly if you live in a humid area or somewhere that experiences a great deal of rain. This is a fairly simple task and the wood can be sealed with an oil created for the express purpose of protecting timber from rotting outdoors.

Western Red Cedar. Another hugely popular choice for pergolas and other outdoor structures is Western Red Cedar. Again, one of the reasons for this is that this type of wood has an attractive weight to strength ratio that makes it ideal for construction projects. But a concern that homeowners typically have when using woods outdoors is the susceptibility to rot and the wood's attractiveness to insects. Fortunately, neither of these common problems is much of an issue when it comes to Red Cedar. This is because the fungicides present in Red Cedar make it more resistant to decay.

Of course, it is still a very good idea to protect the wood further with a sealing oil, but you will find that this wood is less inclined to rot than most, even when in an outdoor environment. The aromatic oils within the wood are also supposed to be unattractive to unwanted insects, which will steer clear of your Red Cedar pergola.

Redwood. Redwood is one of the most pliable types of softwoods, and this makes it very easy to work with for a variety of construction projects. It is easy to saw into the wood and hammer nails into it, for example. This might make the wood seem unattractively soft and that it would be vulnerable in outdoor conditions, but actually, this is not the case.

While redwood is easy to work with, it is also a strong and durable wood, and if you become a redwood pergola owner, you will no doubt be pleasantly surprised at how well the wood keeps its shape and resists warping or shrinking. This is why so many outdoor structures, including decking and fences, are also created with redwood. There is also a chemical inside the pores of the grain that makes the wood extremely rot and insect resistant.

Something to note about redwood is that, as you might expect, it has an orange-red colour, and if you would prefer a more subtle wood with grey tones, redwood might not be the best choice for you.