Wicker is thin, bendy branches or reeds — often willow, bamboo or rattan — woven over and under each other to make baskets, chairs, trays and so on. The word can mean the material itself, but you will meet it far more often sitting in front of another noun: a wicker basket, a wicker chair, a wicker picnic hamper. Strictly speaking wicker names the weaving, not one particular plant, so a rattan chair and a willow basket are both wicker. It carries a warm feeling in English — old gardens, verandas, summer, grandmothers, picnics — so writers use it when they want a homely, slightly old-fashioned scene. Furniture makers sell "wicker" garden sets that are really woven plastic; the word has quietly stretched to cover the look rather than only the material. It is uncountable, so you do not say "a wicker" or "two wickers" — you say a piece of wicker, or name the object: a wicker box.