North Facing Garden - advice

[Yk19]

Hi all

We are considering buying a house with a north facing garden - we currently have a lovely wide south facing one! It is hard to avoid the sun in our garden at present which at times is a pain but generally is lovely. However, the potential new house does have a long garden so guessing that we could create a pleasant seating area away from the house and plant it up accordingly and actually shouldn't be a mega issue??

We are debating whether this is going to bother us too much.

Our garden faces NE and I love it. It does tend to be damp and the lawn gets mossy in the winter, but it’s long enough (about 12m) so the house doesn’t cast shade over the whole garden for the best part of the year. We have a good vegetable garden and grow lots of lovely flowers in the sunnier part of the back garden. Our front garden is roasting hot in summer and that’s where we grow our tomatoes!

however our house itself is darker and cooler than your south facing house will be. even In the height of summer there is a tiny strip along the back of the house that stays in the shade and we never get sun in the kitchen (which only has windows and doors onto the back garden ).

Personally I love the fact my house is always a cool oasis in summer but it isn’t to everyone’s taste

I would look at anything at the sunnier end that might block out light in other seasons. Trees in leaf, other houses etc.

My front garden is north facing and everything grows wonky trying to find the sun! Its a pain having any sort of patio or path as it goes green and slimy quickly as it hardly ever gets the sun to dry it out.

Which rooms will be in the shade? I don’t mind my bedroom being north facing as the sun first thing can be too much ( like camping). I couldn’t do with my main living space being dark though.

Long north facing garden here and love it. We get tons of sun.

i love my north facing garden - the end away from the house gets plenty of sun, and the house stays shady and cool in the summer.

We’re hopefully buying one and I am looking forward to having some shade as current one is too sunny.

I live in Scotland, and have a north facing front garden and a south facing back garden. It’s never been a problem, and I grow a large selection of plants in the north facing bit, including lavender, roses, azaleas, rhododendrons, aquilegia, hostas, brunnera, holly, peonies, bluebells, scilla, tulips, snowdrops, daffodils, forsythia, weigelia, mock orange, berberis, penstemons, scabious, lilies of the valley, foxgloves, ferns, oregano, pieris, heathers, euonymus, cinneraria, wallflowers, ivy, nasturtiums, heuchera, spirea, cyclamen and snapdragons! My only failure was a dicentra, which died off after about three years, and I had to remove a 40 year old flowering cherry tree after it rooted into my main sewer.

We used to have a north-facing garden and it was wonderful in summer, plenty of shade near the house and a sunny patio at the far end. Current garden is a windswept south-facing hellhole reminiscent of the Sahara. The house overheats too. I’d gladly swap.

We used to have a South facing garden and in reality it was so hot in summer we couldn't sit out there for long, the kitchen at the back of the house was boiling hot too.

We moved to a house with a north facing garden which was the one downside in my mind but I actually much prefer it. It just means that our patio and seating area is at the end of the garden where it gets the afternoon and evening sun but there's always a spot by the house in shade if you need to escape the heat. The house also stays cool on that side in summer.

So have we, the important thing is not to have anything obscuring the East and West sun. Around midday the sun in the summer shines above the house so all of the garden is in sun.

Hi OP, we bought our house with long N facing back garden in 2019.

When the clocks go back it is 90% shaded by the house - lawn gets damp and mossy, etc. But then once spring comes we get the sun all day - rising east and going straight over to the west - it's sunny and lovely and we are a BBQ/garden party venue for the summer :)

I have a seating area at the back for wintry sun and plant my veggies there but roses, camelias, lavender, peonies and bulbs fill out the side borders and grow happily in the winter shade and summer sun.

We have all glass bifolds at the back of the house which we have open often from spring to autumn - it would be a greenhouse if it faced the other way but works really well for N facing.

Thanks everyone. Some really helpful info. There are trees on the western side of the house which would cast some shade annoyingly but these are to the front so might not affect too much more than the house itself. I think we would accept that the first section of garden is shady but that the other area would be fine...and design accordingly. We have a gorgeous open plan kitchen in our south facing house at the moment but have to have the blinds down or doors open on sunny days as it cooks in there otherwise!!

Love our NF garden, I can’t bear the sun or heat though. You’ll be fine!

Our back garden is north facing and gets plenty of sun. It's only 50ft long. We have two patios. One up by the house to catch the morning and evening sun and one at the bottom of the garden for the rest of the day.

You'll probably want a seating area and/or table at the bottom of the garden, because that will be sunny during the cooler months. So if you're redesigning, consider clearing out an area down there and maybe paving a little area.

Near the house, in the shadier parts - ferns, Japanese anemones, solomon's seal, hostas (if the slugs don't get em) have all done well for us. A Japanese painted fern is a real treat.