To think this garden will be ok?

[Marino]

Excuse the blurry pic, just to give a rough idea on sizes. It's a fairly small new build garden and unfortunately north facing! Ticked plot is ours.

We don't have the garage from the original plans, so my logic is it may be ok as with no garage there's room for sun to come in through there, we will get sun at bottom half of garden (atleast half, right?) and in the summer months when it's up high we'll have plenty.

Am I right, or am I daft?

We are north facing. We have a wide garden, not a long garden. To be honest the summer is not the problem, the problem is the winter as the garden gets very waterlogged and doesn’t get a chance to dry out due to not seeing much sun.

So that would be my issue when we buy again and why I would only go north faving again if the house was exceptional in every other regard.

Hmm we have a smaller, north facing garden and it’s fine? We get sun in half the garden all day and in summer its fine especially. We have young kids though so we have the paddling pool / eat lunch in the shade and spread down the garden for the heat.

What will it be like in the winter when you get no sun in the garden for large portions of the day?

We are North facing, sun from 1-3pm. We have a huge garden. Patio gets sun til 5pm and balcony until 7pm- but it’s very high. Three storey house.
I would never by North facing again. Ever!
My mum is South facing, she gets sun all year round and can sit outside and even dry washing in winter.

@sunflowersandbuttercups

What will it be like in the winter when you get no sun in the garden for large portions of the day?

I haven't gone in the garden in our current house since September apart from to let the dog out. I use the garden spring-early autumn and that's about it, so I'm not overly worried about that.

The shadow from south will be longer than the depth of the house so at least 2/3 would be in shade. What is where the garage was proposed to be? Don't assume you can fence the front garden, many new builds come with covenants to restrict what you can do and maintain uniformity.

I’ll also add that our lawn is soaking wet /damp.

@LIZS

The shadow from south will be longer than the depth of the house so at least 2/3 would be in shade. What is where the garage was proposed to be? Don't assume you can fence the front garden, many new builds come with covenants to restrict what you can do and maintain uniformity.

We have checked and there are no covenants, at all

@LIZS

The shadow from south will be longer than the depth of the house so at least 2/3 would be in shade. What is where the garage was proposed to be? Don't assume you can fence the front garden, many new builds come with covenants to restrict what you can do and maintain uniformity.

Oh, and nothing will be where the garage would of been. We are going to put a shed in a shaded area instead so that we hopefully get some extra sun where the garage would of been.

We have a tiny north facing garden, it’s no sun trap, but we had to Compromise on somethings. For us the south facing houses with bigger gardens cost more, or had smaller insides, or less bedrooms. I was adamant I wanted a south facing garden but they were out of my price range of I wanted 3 bedrooms, so went for a third bedroom instead.

It’s really depends what’s important to you, and your family needs.

Check if a shed needs pp, new builds often have no permitted development rights.

It very much depends on how long your garden is, but it looks like a nice wide plot.
We have a north facing garden and in the height of summer the 3 storeys only makes a shadow line of about 2 metres. At this time of year however, it is only the very end 1/3 of the garden that gets sunlight at noon.
However the sunlight doesn't move in a straight line, more of a crescent shape, so we get sunlight from the east in the morning in increasing amounts as we approach midsummer, and from the west in the late afternoon. In the height of summer we do actually have a tiny bit of sun coming into the north facing rooms in the early morning and late evening, which is lovely.
By contrast the front of the house is very sunny and last summer ended up having to buy an air conditioning unit so that DH could continue to work from home in his study which is at the front (blinds shut and windows open it got up to 32 deg in there!).
I think you would be more affected by any large trees, but it looks like a new development, so presume that's not an issue?

A north facing garden needn't be awful Marino as it also depends on what forms the boundaries. If you have lots of tall buildings which cast deep shade that could be a problem but there are some advantages.

A south facing garden can get too hot and any flower borders will dry out faster - needing much more watering to survive. My garden faces south - the sunny border is more difficult to maintain as it bakes but the shady side is a doddle. The main problem is a mossy lawn but I hope to get rid of that at some point.

I think it depends on what else is around you etc rather than just the direction

Yeah we have a south facing garden and I imagined sun all day but in reality we don't get sun past about 4pm even in summer because of the house next door being further set back than ours/ mature neighbour trees etc.
Our north facing front garden does get wonderful sun on summer evenings though!

forget covenants - its very rare that councils will allow a fence more than 3 feet near the road at the front of property

If I were you I'd hedge the front garden and then put some table and chairs out there, so you can get a bit of sun to relax in during the day. A few pots with colourful plants in, maybe a small water feature? Obviously it won't be great for BBQs etc, but when we have a BBQ it usually rains anyway so we end up indoors.

No good if you'd like to sit in the garden and have a drink or supper in the evening sun. I suppose it depends on how you plan to use the garden.

@Marino

We haven't exchanged but have reserved etc. The £15k extra for south facing garden didn't seem worth it to us when it was a worse plot, the gardens were overlooked from all aspects whereas we have no houses behind us (and no chance of expansion), it was closer to the main road, we're tucked out the way etc. Husband also said it's a definite pro to have the front of the house south facing as the main rooms would benefit. I don't expect an all day sun trap but having sun in the summer months is a necessity or we'll be miserable.

I’d go for the current plot and less sun than an overlooked one by a road anyway of the week, your garden looks long enough you should get some sun. We had a north facing new build and had sun pretty much all day. Stick a bench out the front of you really want. New build heat up like anything and you’ll soon be complaining about lack of shade!

If you are already worrying about how much sun maybe a north facing garden is not for you. In a small garden that's overlooked it may well be a problem if you like the sun.

@Marino

This picture shows it a bit more clearly, it has a compass too (red line showing where as I couldn't see it at first!)

I think it's fully north facing based off that. The front garden is south facing and once we've fenced it off would be usable but is small.

From your clearer picture your garden looks like it's nw facing, which is what ours is. Our garden is longer than yours, but ours is overlooked by two storey flats behind. We get the sun pretty much all day during the summer. We have the morning sun coming down between the houses and then as it moves round, we get it in the right side of the garden for the rest of the day. We are setting our garden up to have the main dining area in the place where we get the last of the sun, which goes about 5/6pm. The only things I would worry about would be whether the land behind would be built in at some point in the future. That would be my deal breaker, not a nw facing garden.

I have a north garden and it's shady in the morning as I have a town house and full
blazing sun from the West by 12/1pm. Honestly it will depend on the houses to the west/ height. The fences between new builds are quite high too. Your neighbours garage might block your sun, I don't get the bit about you not having a garage now?

I find the garden fine, in winter our big north kitchen is very gloomy though.

I haven't gone in the garden in our current house since September apart from to let the dog out. I use the garden spring-early autumn and that's about it, so I'm not overly worried about that.

I think it's just worth thinking - if you get no sun for months, and it rains a lot, your garden will be a bog. With a dog, that can be a real pain in the arse if you need to clean him up every time he goes out.

I think it will be fine and you will have a lovely suntrap at the end of your garden. My garden is north facing and most of our garden is in the sun in the afternoon in the summer months. Good luck and enjoy your new home!

£15k more for a south facing garden - and that would presumably give you a north-facing house?

Our house faces south so our back garden is north-facing, got a 6 foot brick wall on all side. We're surrounded by buildings taller than us. The garden is shallow enough to be completely in the shadow of the house from November to March - no sun reaches the soil for those four months. Sounds horrible, huh?

But -

come April, the sun is high enough so that the shadow slowly descends the back wall and reaches the soil. Morning sun comes in from the east through a gap in the buildings in that direction, so that by May it has a lot of sun, from dawn until about 5pm, when the sun dips behind the four-storey to the west. And to be honest, we're grateful for the shade at that point, as it can get really warm back there ! For the last couple of summers we've been eating breakfast, lunch and dinner in our back garden and an evening gin. Sometimes, having to moves table/chairs into a shaded spot because it's too sunny to read.

From your diagram, I think you'd have similar. And a south-facing house, which is great all year round, and especially in winter when it's too cold to be out in the garden whichever way it faces and the sun is low enough to reach a long way in.

personally, I'd go for the north-facing garden.

If you're feeling geometrical, Marina, you can get a pencil, ruler, protractor and some squared/graph paper. You'll need the dimensions of the new house & garden.

Draw a diagram (roughly to scale) of a sideways view of the back of the house (ground to roof line) and length of garden.

In midsummer, at 50degrees latitude (England - Edinburgh is 55), the sun path is (apparently - if anyone knows better I'm happy to stand corrected!) about 65 degrees at midday - you can draw that above your roof, and draw a line showing where the rays will hit the garden!

As others have said, if the garden falls away from the house, there will be more shadow; the house to the west of you, will block evening sun; etc. But the diagram may help picture what you'll get.