Outdoor Furniture Plus' Blog

A Mission glider follows the simple principles of mission-style architecture. This style emerged from the missions in California and the West. A Mission glider incorporates the straight lines, square corners, and flat slats and armrests common to this style of furniture. For a simple patio design, I think a mission glider is one of the best choices available.

Unless your patio is quite small, you might wish to place additional furniture around your mission glider. But not all Mission furniture looks the same. So how do we match other furniture to a Mission glider?

Here are a few areas I’ve compared among Mission furniture:

• Width of slats. Some pieces incorporate thin slats, while others use wide slats. If you attempt to match pieces with similar widths in the slats, the other furniture will look like it belongs with the Mission glider.
• Shape of armrests. Some pieces have perfectly rectangular armrests, while others offer armrests that flare on the hand ends. Use furniture with shaping that mimics your Mission glider.
• Cushions. If possible, purchase all cushions in the same style. These will help to hide differences between Mission pieces that you purchased separately.

When you pay attention to these key areas, I believe you’ll be more successful in matching additional furniture to your Mission glider.

A planter bench set brings together two staples of the rustic garden into one fixture—benches and planters. In a planter bench set, wooden box planters form the connecting pieces between plank benches. Many sets allow you to add multiple benches. Some have attached arbors or trellises. I’ve seen sets both that sit straight and that fit corners.

Preparing your own potting soil for your planter bench set is possible, but only for those who think ahead. For myself, I’d rather just buy the potting soil, but occasionally I enjoy trying such projects just for the experience.

You begin by mixing the soil with the correct amount of ingredients, such as sand, humus, manure, or peat. To discover a good mix, conduct research on the plants you wish to grow.

After you have mixed the soil, you can sterilize it. Sterilization kills harmful bacteria and culls out weeds. Place a tarp on the ground in a sunny location. Shovel the soil onto the tarp. Leave it alone for a month. Then flip the soil and leave it for an additional month in the sun.

Don’t worry if you feel you’re getting a late start to your preparations for a planter bench set. Last year, we waited until the very end of the season. The greenhouses were preparing to close their doors until the following year. We bought all our flowers for half off or more, and they lasted throughout the remainder of the summer and all through the fall.

Bringing home a wooden glider is only one step of a patio decoration plan. Sometimes, with careful coordination of colors, shapes, and patterns, you can mix materials effectively in a décor scheme. But sometimes these efforts only land you with a mismatched group of items that don’t look like they belong together. Perhaps your best option is to use all wooden pieces in various natural wood shades to complement your wooden glider.

Here are the some of the wooden décor items I have either seen in other locations or used in my own home:

• Mats/rugs
• Side tables
• Wall hangings
• Vases
• Cups and bowls
• Planters
• Potting tables
• Storage boxes
• Coffee tables
• Lounge chairs
• Serving trays
• Bird cages
• Candleholders
• Carved figurines or animals
• Lamps

I certainly wouldn’t stuff all these items onto my patio. But a few well-placed wooden accents can increase the warm glow that emanates from a wooden glider. I find that I feel more at rest when my surroundings seem to contain order and a sense of harmony. And I believe that I am not alone, that many people feel the same way. One way to create order and harmony with your wooden glider is to choose surrounding items with care.