Patio not ready for spring? Here’s how to fix that

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Here’s what most people think “getting the patio ready” means: bring out or uncover the furniture, wipe down the table, put out the pillows and call it a day. Then, the first warm Saturday arrives, guests show up, and someone sits down and looks up to find Halloween-esque cobwebs. Yikes! And speaking of October, there’s that mossy stain on the pavers that’s been building since the fall…and the list of patio opening day frights goes on. Most spring patio prep focuses on getting ready to party, not on getting the important cleaning jobs done. So to kick off spring, here are five of those jobs—what to do, why it works, and exactly what to use.

Unless you want to hang out with spiders and contend with cobwebs, do this job first. Before anything gets set up on your patio or deck, the cobwebs have to go. Start high, work your way down, and emotionally prepare yourself from what (or who!) you might encounter. After a Canadian winter, the cobweb situation on any patio is worse than expected. There are also egg sacs. That’s all that needs to be said about that.

Extendable Cobweb Duster with Extension Pole

This Extendable Cobweb Duster with Extension Pole adjusts from 5 to 20 feet, which means eaves, rafters, fence posts, pergola corners, and outdoor light fixtures can be cleaned and all without a ladder. It features a lightweight pole and dense, upright bristles designed for sticky outdoor webs. Start at the top, sweep down, and hose off when done.

$49.99 on Amazon (was $59.99)

Quick question: when was the last time the underside of a patio chair was cleaned? The joints where the legs meet the frame? The hollow tubes of metal furniture that collected moisture, debris, how about that wicker, and the grime from October through March?

The underside of outdoor furniture is where mold and moss loves to hang out. It’s where bugs and pests nest, where grime layers up season over season, and where the evidence of every freeze and every rainstorm accumulates. And no one remembers to clean this, which is exactly why it should be on the list.

Electric Spin Scrubber

Remove all cushions, flip every piece and scrub the underside properly. This Electric Spin Scrubber extends to 43 inches, so awkward angles are reachable without kneeling, bending, or touching anything too unpleasant. Use water and a heavy dose of dish soap, and level up to a mold and mildew cleaner (I’ve got you covered in just a minute!). The rotating brush head gets into joints, crevices, and wicker weave that a cloth will never actually clean. It’s cordless, IPX7 waterproof, and runs 90 minutes on a charge. This does the heavy scrubbing for you and all you need to do is rinse the furniture and let it dry in the sunshine.

$45.12 on Amazon (was $79.99)

Every Canadian patio develops some version of this: the black and green staining on the concrete, mildew on the deck boards, algae creeping across the pavers. The usual approaches are scrubbing manually with bleach (exhausting, not the safest choice), blasting it with a pressure washer at the wrong PSI and etching the surface (expensive mistake), or just leaving it and hoping no one looks down. None of these are particularly good options.

There is a better approach, and it is so easy, it’s almost hard to believe.

Wet & Forget Outdoor Concentrate

Wet & Forget Outdoor Concentrate works like this: mix one part concentrate with five parts water in a garden sprayer, apply to a dry surface on a cool day, and walk away. Wind and rain do the cleaning over the following one to two weeks. No scrubbing, no rinsing, no pressure washer. Some surfaces might need a few treatments, and some might take longer, but the product works without you scrubbing or doing anything else besides applying the product. It removes black and green staining without anyone lifting a finger, and surfaces stay clean for a year or more after a single application. It works on concrete, decking, pavers, siding, canvas, and upholstery. Bleach-free and non-acidic—it weakens the cell structure of mildew and algae so weather does the lifting. Safe around plants and pets when used as directed.

$44.95 on Amazon

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This sounds too minor to matter, but if you’ve ever lifted up a planter after a wet season, you know what goes on under there isn’t pretty.

Planters sitting flat on decking, stone patios, or composite surfaces trap moisture all season. The water draining out has nowhere to go, which means permanent staining on natural stone and cedar, rotting pot bases, and standing water underneath, which makes for a perfectly delightful mosquito breeding ground. In freeze-thaw conditions, pots sitting in pooled water are also far more likely to crack over the winter. I’ve lost several this way.

Invisible Pot Feet

The fix is simple: these little Invisible Pot Feet. A half-inch of lift is enough for water to drain freely and air to circulate. They’re made from 100% recycled rubber, manufactured in Canada and the USA, nearly invisible under the pot, and four risers support up to 1,600 lbs. A 32-pack covers an entire patio and costs less than a single garden centre visit. It’s pretty impressive for a simple solution. Use them for outdoor decor, statues and other accessories, too.

$35.98 on Amazon

There are three camps when it comes to pressure washers. There are people who own one and talk about it constantly. There are people who don’t own one and think they don’t need one. And there are people who own one and are afraid of damaging their surfaces. The last two groups are missing out on one of the most effective outdoor cleaning tools available.

Kärcher K 5 Premium 2000 PSI Electric Power Induction Pressure Washer

A pressure washer turns a half-day of scrubbing into 20 minutes. Concrete, decking, pavers, furniture frames, siding, cars, bikes, outdoor accessories, one tool handles everything. This is the pressure washer I have used for years, and it delivers 2,000 PSI, a water-cooled induction motor that lasts up to 5x longer than standard motors and runs significantly quieter, a 25 ft pressurized hose reel, a Vario Power Spray wand that adjusts pressure mid-clean with a simple twist (this is in lieu of nozzles), and the patented DirtBlaster turbo wand for embedded grime on hard surfaces. One you start using a pressure washer, you won’t want to stop, it’s so satisfying.

$355.99 on Amazon (was $439.99)

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