North facing garden

[Invisiblewoman1]

Would this bother you?

I am moving from an almost due North garden which is about 50 foot long and I have had the lovely summers here. I have a small patio at the bottom of garden for early morning coffee outside and then the main patio has afternoon sun but I like it as there’s always plenty of shade and I’ve still grown lovely flowers and got a lovely lawn.

I’m moving to a house with a north - north west garden which is over 100 foot long but narrow. One side has high fence other side low. I notice lots of neighbours have summer houses at the bottom of the garden where there’s no buildings so less shade I imagine. There is a patio at bsck of house which I imagine has very little sun but this is also an area of shared access for the other terraces to take bins out etc. The house then has a patio half way down garden where I imagine there’s a lot more sunlight.

Do you think I will experience the same in new house and lovely summers due to always finding a bit of sun and lots of shade?

Would north garden put you off?

100 ft is long - it should be fine though maybe shadow cast by the high fence but that won't be much of a problem mid summer.

You could always have a visit at the right time of day, and hope it isn't cloudy.

A north garden would only put me off it was short enough to be shaded by the house. A 100ft garden will get sun in over half of it, even in winter. The other consideration is light at the back of the house.

Is fence on east or west side? Would be more concerned about that in in a narrow garden.
I’d hold out for a south facing garden as that’s in our top 3 priorities but some people aren’t so bothered.

The high fence is on the west side .

For me, I like shade in the garden as I don’t want to be in the midday sun and unable to go into the garden as no shade. But I don’t want a full garden in shade all day long

I would ask to visit at a different time of day just to get a feel.
Our garden is NW facing and we do have a fair bit of shade at different times and in different areas.
Part of our garden is in almost full shade for much of the day due to a neighbouring property and a high fence. Not much grows there bar bloody bamboo!

We face North-East(ish) and get the sun on the far end in the morning and on the patio at the back of the house in the evening. There are bits in sun and in shade at different times of the day, but you can certainly get full sun, or shade if you want it.

Whether or not you get sun depends on the width of the garden and the height of the fence IMO. We have a 6ft fence which shades the west side of the garden by about 1/3. If the garden was narrower, that would cause a problem.

As other posters have mentioned, the problem we have is with the room opening out on to the garden being quite dark - it has a flat roof in part and we're adding roof lights to compensate.

I have a NW facing garden - the patio is in shade mostly but the rest of the garden (which is pretty long) gets lots of sun throughout the day.

5ft fence both sides

I always find the "requirement" for a south facing garden a bit strange, it's not like the UK is particularly sunny and you can spend that much time in the garden, last year was a bit of an exception.

But unless the garden is tiny, by definition the other end of it is south-facing, so you just put the garden furniture etc there. You say it's a very long garden with a patio further down, so you can do exactly that.

I have a north facing garden. Doesn't bother me in the slightest.

I love our north north east facing garden, its 25m long and bright sun on the top terrace in the morning then it works down through our flowerbed and lawn then onto the bottom patio in the evenings which are covered by drooping trees from the north so it’s really really lovely. What ever time of day it’s sunny somewhere BUT you can hide when it’s blistering.

We’re an end of terrace.

You can google the suns path and it will show you different times of the day over your house.

similar thread, might be useful

I’d be more worried about the open path for bins.

We have a south facing garden currently and I’d never buy anything else. I absolutely love it in the summer and get full sunshine all day until early evening. However, I am an absolute sun worshipper and even asked the council to trim a tree that was causing a bit of shade

I have a north facing garden - narrow but long. It’s lovely: a sunny spot at the far end for lounging and for growing vegetables, a lawn in the middle that gets enough sun to avoid moss, and a shaded terrace near the house for dining. The house is always cool, too, as most of the windows are in shade.

One thing I did was to change one of the fences to slatted panels, to keep some privacy from the neighbours but allow light through. Really helped.

We have a long North (slightly East) facing garden and it gets plenty of sun especially at the bottom of the garden. Our garden is fairly long which I think helps! We have 5ft fences on both sides which I suppose does create some shade but I never notice it being so problematic that it covers the whole garden. We have lovely flowers and lawn (all DH’s doing :-)) Not sure how wide the garden is, but we live in a terrace, so can’t be too wide!

But I don’t want a full garden in shade all day long You'd have to have an enormously tall house for it to cast shade all the way down a 100ft garden! Why are you thinking that you might have shade all day?

A north facing guarden is only problematic if the garden is small, a 100ft guarden is fine whichever way it faces. And anyway, in the summer it will get loads of evening sun when the sun is in the NW.

Marvellous - thank you all!!!

The access into garden by neighbours is pretty standard for Victorian terraces. Everyone I looked at was the same. It doesn’t really bother me as the bins only go out once a week and on a set day and other than that it’s for fire escape purposes and if they have heavy garden things they don’t want to take through their houses. I understand it would bother some people though.

We’ve got a north (very slightly east) facing garden, it’s about 80ft long and we have a loft extension with a dormer. The garden also slopes away downwards. In mid-winter it’s in full shade but by late March that’s shrunk to about half and by mid summer most of the garden has sunshine, just the area closest to the house is shaded by the loft dormer.

We once had a NE 40ft facing garden and built a patio in the end as we love the sun. Was lovely when in sun but did lose sun around 5 or 6. To be honest didn't bother me as by then in high summer we needed a break from it by the evening after a weekend day in the heat, and as the garden was walled it stayed warm.

We are moving soon and back of house will be N facing but on 4.6 acres so not a big concern!