Rattan is a solid climbing palm, closer to a vine than to bamboo, and it is used as poles for frames or split into strands for weaving. Cane is a specific part of rattan, the peeled outer skin, and it is what gets woven into the open webbing you see across chair backs and cabinet doors. Wicker is not a material at all, it is a weaving technique that can be done in rattan, willow or synthetic fibre. This matters when you shop because the words are used loosely and the pieces behave differently. A rattan pole frame carries structural load. Cane webbing is a surface: it flexes, it takes weight in a distributed way, and it will not tolerate a concentrated point load. That single difference explains most of the damage people report.

Both are natural fibres that respond to the air around them. Very dry heat, a radiator or a hard sun spot dries cane out and makes it brittle, which is when the strands crack. Persistent damp does the opposite: it relaxes and stretches the weave, which shows up as a sagging seat, and in the worst case brings mould. The good news is the timescale. Indoors, away from direct sun and with reasonable humidity, high grade cane webbing lasts decades, and the same material outdoors and unprotected can be finished in a few years. Practical care is undramatic. Dust it, keep it out of direct sunlight and away from heater ducts, run a humidifier in a dry winter if you have a lot of it, and wipe an oil such as lemon or mineral oil across the webbing sparingly a couple of times a year to keep it supple.

Cane fronted storage is the most forgiving application, because the webbing is vertical, nothing sits on it and nothing sits against it. It also breathes, which suits a cabinet. Cane and rattan seating is next, and the thing to check is the frame: a solid rattan pole frame with a woven seat is a chair you can keep for years, and a decorative cane panel glued into a thin frame is not. Never kneel or stand on a cane seat, since concentrated weight is what breaks strands and forces a reweave. Woven and rattan tables are light and easy to move, which is their advantage, and the reason to keep drinks on a coaster rather than directly on the weave. Synthetic rattan exists and is the right answer for anywhere with real damp or sun, at the cost of the depth and variation of the real thing.

If you take one thing away, buy cane and rattan for the parts of a room that stay dry and out of direct sun, and treat any piece that will live in a conservatory or a bright window as a different decision. The material is far more durable than its delicate appearance suggests, and it is let down by placement rather than by use. We would happily put cane fronted storage in almost any room and would think twice about a fully caned seat in a house where people perch on chair arms and kneel on seats. One last thing worth checking before you order: ask whether the webbing is a replaceable panel held in a spline groove. If it is, a damaged seat is a repair rather than a loss, and that changes what the piece is worth keeping.