Rattan Furniture
Have you ever wondered where the materials for wicker garden furniture come from? Rattan is the name for 600 species of indigenous palms found in tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Australasia. Rattans are more like ferns or vines than trees. They scramble through and over the other vegetation on the forest floor. Bamboos and Rattans are very similar, and are both used to make cane furniture.
Harvesting rattan for wicker furniture can be good for the environment. Since rattans need trees to survive, rattan harvesting deters deforestation in tropical areas. It provides an alternative to loggers who forgo timber logging and harvest rattan canes instead. Generally, the raw material is processed to make rattan furniture. From a strand of rattan, the skin is peeled off and used as weaving material. For the purposes of rattan furniture making, the palms are a relatively flexible weaving material. Rattan furniture is not only beautiful, but good for the environment! Wicker garden furniture can be made from a variety of materials including rattan and bamboo.
Cane Furniture
Caning is a method of weaving chair seats and other furniture. Cane furniture is made from wicker such as cane or rattan vines. Some vines reach 500 feet in length! One of the earliest cane furniture chairs is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection. It was owned by Reniseneb, a scribe who lived from 1539-1295 BC! The chair resembles pieces of modern wicker furniture that are popular today. Truly, wicker garden furniture has come a long way!
Egyptian furniture provides one of the only surviving examples of actual ancient furniture. Egyptians believed that they could keep their possessions in the after-life, and many wicker items were buried with the pharaohs. In the hot and dry climate, many of these items have been preserved. Egyptian furniture was made with great woodworking skill. The technique used to create Egyptian furniture is used today with modern wicker furniture!