Outdoor Cushions

by Stan Logan | Oct 25, 2021 | Garden art

Outdoor pillows

The timing is right for me to pass on a cleaning shore I just discovered. The cushions you see below were on a bench in the back yard. When I pulled the bench under cover before the recent storm, I found the cushions to be covered with a sticky substance. The bench is located under our huge hackberry tree, and although I applied a systemic, the wooly aphids attacked again. Power washing did a decent job of cleaning the cushions but left them soaked. Hanging them on a clothesline left them soppy at the bottom.  Then I thought of the clothes washer thinking that the spin cycle would remove most of the water. Since the cushions were small, I was able to fit several at a time into the washer. I used very little detergent and the cushions came out sparkling and practically dry. A fan finished the chore.

So, if you have outdoor cushions, now may be a good time to wash them before storing them away for the winter particularly if they got wet in the recent storm.  If your cushions are large, I would still suggest you try squishing them into your washer. But better consider the cushion content first. I wouldn’t use this technique of washing unless the stuffing is a foam rubber pad. A front loader machine might also work better than a top loader since there is no agitator to mangle the cushions.

Stan, The Washer Man