Love my north facing garden.

[Buxusmortus]

On here I often read about people who wouldn't dream of buying a house with a north facing back garden.

My house is on an exact north-south axis and in the winter there's no sun at all in the back garden nearest the house. In summer it gets much more sun as the sun is high and also from the west in the afternoon and evening. I've always loved it, can grow lots of different types of plants and I grow the real sun-lovers in my front garden.

But in our increasingly hot summers to have the back of the house and garden nearest the house in shade is a massive bonus, I can sit and eat outside without being roasted alive and don't need to be rigging up shades and parasols, yet I can be in full sun just a bit further down the garden if I choose.

I wonder if shadier gardens will become more of a selling point in the future.

I won't rub it in on a day like today!

Best of both worlds!

I'd like it. My parents have got south facing and I hate it. The back of their house is like a greenhouse. My childhood bedroom was boiling. I've got west facing back so the front and back get sun at different times. But there's lots of trees for shade at the back and the evening is full shade from 5

I don't sit in my garden in winter though, I do garden but no sun doesn't bother me. My living room goes the length of the house so has windows facing North and south and my dining room faces south so inside I get winter sun. I've never had any sun in my kitchen but I don't mind that.

We have south-west garden but it is mature garden so loads of shade from trees. I think without trees it would be too hot.

A parasol in a south facing garden means you're still roasting hot. It doesn't stop heat radiating out from the house walls which have been baking in the sun.
In my north facing back garden my house walls are cool because they never get sun. I have ivy growing up them and wrens have nested in it every year for over 20 years.
Trees also help to cool the air around them. I have some very tall trees at the end of my garden, I love them.

I’ve owned/lived in a number of houses during my life, and it has never occurred to me which way the garden faces 😂

they’ve all had bits where it’s sunny, and bits where it’s shady. I find like pp have said I prefer a shady garden. When it’s actually warm enough to sit out in you need shade. In winter it makes fuck all difference as who wants to sit out in the cold and damp 😂.

to me a south facing garden is useless as it’s too hot and no shade, or it’s cold and no shade 😂. I want hot and shady..

I have a South facing courtyard that gets like a furnace this time of year especially with the heat bouncing off the stone walls.

I prefer the West facing lawn which has shade in the morning and sun all afternoon, it finally disappears behind the trees around 7pm.

I have a North facing kitchen and garden but it's very long and thin, so the bottom is south facing. I love that my kitchen never gets too hot.

I hear you. Love our shady north facing garden in the summer. It is a bit of a swamp in the winter though to be fair. Our front garden is currently a blazing pit of hell.

I'm in a new build flat, facing north north west

I was previously in a new build flat facing Southwest

It is better in this flat, but it's not as much better as I thought it would be

Due to the way the development is I guess, the communal garden is better in the evening even though it faces south.

I am probably past the stage where I would buy a house, but I would've gone for a north facing garden as well.

If you like to garden then a south facing garden is a real problem in the summer. Far too hot for gardening. My garden wraps around the cottage and I'm so lucky that I can always find a shady bit to work on or sit in.

I have no idea how people who've built conservatories or those glass box type extensions/big sky light windows on the south side of their house cope in this weather. Our neighbour has a sun umbrella up inside her conservatory today.

I’ve had two north facing gardens and neither have had any shade whatsoever most of the year! In winter yes there’s a bit more. But I’d struggle with a garden designed to have more sun!!!

I have one. I don’t like it as the living room literally never gets the sun and feels very dark and gloomy. There is a lot of moss on the lawn and our garden is also very windy so there are only a handful of days we can actually sit in it. I would never have one again.

I have a South facing garden with the living room facing that way, too hot and too sunny. I envy you!

I love my west facing garden and have trees which give me shade if I need it.

au don't like North for the lack of light inside particularly in winter.

I completely agree! New house with the apparent bonus of a south facing garden. My DH loves it, was a bit of a deal breaker for him. I hate it! Bright sun in the kitchen and no escape from it outside, though we have a shelter. He will pull all the blinds up, I pull them down! Makes the house where we spend most of our time too hot and no natural shade in garden. I'm a cooler weather person. Xxx

Same…I’m so pale as to be almost transparent and my north facing garden is wonderful! I have two seating areas…one right outside my French window and another right down the end of the garden…so I can choose my spot to suit 💖

We are in Mid Cheshire on the edge of a village with very little to protect us from west/north westerly winds so I am grateful for my south facing garden most days.
Recently built houses behind us seem to have created some sort of vortex making the wind much worse than it ever used to be. If we were north facing it would be far to chilly to sit out unless there was no breeze at all.

We have too. It also means that the house doesn't get too hot in heat like this because our big windows are on the North side. I suspect it wasn't deliberately designed for that, but it's a great side effect.

I’d like a north facing garden !
Ours is south facing and gets too hot on warm days , doesn’t even have to be a hot day .
The other week it was a perfectly decent day maybe about 25c but I was frying just hanging out the washing

I agree with you, we have Easterly facing so sun at the back first thing and then it moves around so we can enjoy a sunny breakfast and then, in the height of summer, have the joy of shade near the house and sun further back if we want it. There are sunny spots available all day if you want them, its lovely to have the option.

It honestly depends on the size. I had a small East facing garden and only got sun until about 3 in the afternoon because the shadow of the house covered the whole garden. I hated it, couldn’t sit out after work. If you have a bigger garden you can still get sun. Ive since bought a house with a much bigger West facing garden and I love it.

Also loving my North West facing garden. Initially it was my compromise when moving from a West facing garden, but the guaranteed shade is a godsend.

In the winter we switch the rooms around as it’s semi open plan and cosy up in the snug and enjoy the south facing winter sunshine. The South facing side is seriously viscous with these extreme temperatures we’ve had, so flipping hot.

We use the spare North facing bedroom in the summer, much cooler and the South facing in the winter. I’ve recently had solar panels on the roof and already it has cut my electricity bill in half, still need to register into the feed in tariff to the main grid for extra payment per kWh. To be honest I’m happy at the savings and I got them for free under the ECO4 scheme, I’m really impressed so far.

Ours is north facing but it's 175ft long so there's a good balance of both sun and shade all day long so in that respect, its great but the downside is we are constantly weeding, digging, chopping and mowing and as we both work full time, we get very little time to sit and relax in it. South or West facing gardens have always been marketed as a desirable feature but we had a short south facing garden once and found it unbearably hot so in this current climate it may not be so desirable anymore. But as someone has already said, it's very much a first world problem and I appreciate that we are lucky to have a garden at all