I've furnished this porch three times.You only need to do it once.

Left alone, teak turns a soft silver-grey within a year — evenly, if it gets even light. This is oxidation of the surface only; the wood beneath is unchanged and its natural oils keep it from rotting. Oil it if you want the honey colour back, and understand you are then committed to oiling it every spring. Grade A (heartwood, tight grain, no knots) silvers evenly; lower grades go blotchy. Nothing about the greying shortens its life.

Upkeep: One afternoon a year, at most. None, if you like grey.

Acacia arrives looking a great deal like teak and costs a great deal less, which is exactly why it appears in so many sets. It has far less natural oil. Under sun and rain it dries, and dry acacia checks — fine cracks along the grain, usually inside two seasons. Oiled every spring and moved under cover for winter, it will give you many good years. Left out and forgotten, it will not.

Upkeep: An hour every spring, and a place to put it in January.

The coating is tough and the flat panels usually outlast everyone's expectations. Rust starts where the coating is thinnest — the welds, the cut ends of tubing, the scratch where the chair met the door frame. Touch those up the week you notice them and the frame lasts a decade. Ignore them for a winter and the rust travels underneath the coating, where you cannot reach it.

Upkeep: Ten minutes with touch-up paint, once a year, at the joints.

The olefin and polyester ropes used on good outdoor seating are UV-stable and will not rot. They do stiffen when cold and damp, and a rope chair left out through a wet winter feels like a different chair in March — it softens again as the weather turns. Real deterioration shows as fuzzing at the points where the rope crosses the frame. That is abrasion, not weather, and it is the thing to inspect.

Upkeep: Nothing, most years. Look at the crossing points each spring.

Colour in solution-dyed acrylic goes all the way through the fibre rather than sitting on it, so it fades slowly and evenly instead of going patchy. Expect a gentle softening of tone over five or six seasons, which most people never notice. What ends a cushion is the stitching and the zip, both of which sit on the surface and take the full sun. Ask what the thread is made of; nobody does.

Upkeep: Brush them off. Bring them in when the season turns.

A flatweave polypropylene rug is the most forgiving thing on a patio: it takes rain, it takes a hose, and jewel tones hold their depth for years. The failure is not the rug, it is what happens beneath it. A rug left wet under a table traps moisture against stone or decking and leaves a ghost of itself in mildew. Lift it, let both sides dry, put it back.

Upkeep: Ten minutes after heavy rain. Lift it, do not just sweep it.