Will this garden get any sun?

[Autumndays24]

Hello, my husband and I have wanted to buy in this area for a really long time. This is the last house on the development and has become available last minute. The house has everything we want aside from a concern we have for the garden. The front of the houses faces South and the back garden has a NW orientation. The house (and our semi detached neighbours is 3 storey) Will the garden get sun? The prospect of a very shaded garden put’s me off.

The plot is 96, I’ve marked the house with a blue dash.

Thank you.

I have a very small N facing back yard in a terraced street - 2 storey houses with some rear dormer extensions. At this time of year it will get sun at the far end of it for a couple of hours in the morning. Once the clocks go back we don't get any sun at all because it's too low in the sky. In summer we get plenty of sun in morning and mid to late afternoon but it's shaded nearer the house. I much prefer this to the houses backing onto me which have S facing yards, theirs are baking hot in summer as the sun really blazes down onto theirs. Anyone on that side of the street with large glass doors etc finds it v hot in summer

@ketchupjap Young and naive at the time!!

I would go and visit this morning, lunchtime and then again this afternoon. You will get more sun in the summer than you do today as the sun is higher in the summer. But at least you will see where the sun is at different times today.

@ketchupjap i mean this in reference to our current house, that’s what the photo I took is. Not the prospective new house where my boy concern is the garden.

The sun is lower in the sky in winter so less sun then, when it's at it's highest - about ?middle of June, nearly all will be sunny.

@minipie it is yes

Are you close enough to visit and peer over the fence into the garden? If you can only visit once, I'd choose a time where sun would be most important to you.

This time of year is probably a good indication or what spring and autumn light would be like. And then you know it will be better in Summer. So if it has sun now, you know it will have it for 3/4 of the year. And if there's loads of sun now, then you'll probably have some all year.

We have a north facing back garden and it's lovely. Full sun am, partial shade during the day (but always sun somewhere), sun in the evening. It's perfect.

The sun is in the E at 6am GMT, S at 12pm, W at 6pm. (1hr later BST). This is true every day of the year. But the tilt of the earth means that the sun is below the horizon for some of this time, so end December you can assume it doesn’t appear till it’s almost in the SE approaching 9am, and sets in the SW soon after 3pm. Conversely in midsummer it’ll rise soon after 3am (4am BST) towards the NE and set nearly 9pm (10pm BST) towards the NW.

So you see that you’ll get direct sun in the garden early morning and evening, more in the evening than the morning because of the slight curve in the road.

once the sun is moving to the S,your house is in the way, so you’ll have its shadow over the garden, a shorter shadow in summer than winter because the sun is higher in the sky.

so overall I’d expect morning sun, evening sun, then daytime sun at the end furthest from your house in summer but maybe not in midwinter. But in midwinter you’ll have the sun streaming into the windows of the rooms you use most.

On hot summer days, your front rooms will get hot, so you’ll want the windows shut, and blinds or curtains, and let cool air stream in from open windows on the shaded garden side.

No, it’s not gloomy. On a sunny day it’s still bright, and it’s quite nice to have good shade on the hottest days. I can grow hostas and annual fuchsias without any trouble, and I have a greenhouse for tomatoes that is on the west side of the garden (so mostly shaded for most of the day except in high summer).

If your new house is two storeys I don’t think there will be a problem - the garden looks quite long. And having a south-facing bit of garage wall in the garden will be lovely for climbers.

@Butterflyfern about ten minutes away. The site states “site contractors only” but I could plead ignorance and say I got lost along the way I’m sure! This is a good suggestion, thank you.

@SnakesAndArrows good to know, thanks. The new house is 3 storey’s. It’s a new build in a traditional style. Hence my wondering, if the 3 storey aspect would impact it more. Hopefully on seeing it we can see for definite how big the garden is.

Yes it will, from lunchtime until sunset in the summer months. Having a shady spot near the house is a positive bonus if you ask me; our garden faces due west and is like a furnace in hot weather without a vestige of shade anywhere.

So it's early afternoon in Mid October and my NW facing garden is at least 50% in the sunshine still, it's looking fabulous! The most westerly part of the garden corner has lost the sun it had earlier in the day, and the bottom right (easternmost point closest to the house) hasn't got it yet. The centre is full sun all the way to the house and the eastern border is full of sun. I would definitely visit to find out how it is in the possible house, don't rule it out.

Is the land flat or does it slope?

We used to live on the crest of a hill. We had a N facing garden but the far end was much higher than the part near the house and as a result that bit was sunny for much of the year. The ones downhill on the other side of the slope, also N facing, had no sun to speak of.

@AmeliaEarache I’m not totally sure at the moment. Will find out when we visit. The estate is raised on a slight hill but I’m not sure if the house itself is on a hill.

These can be useful:

https://shademap.app/
https://www.suncalc.org/

Similar oriention here, long garden. Loads of sun in summer, although never any in the ten or so foot outside the back of the house, and not a vast amount in winter as it drops lower than the height of the houses as it swings round, bar a bit at the end. Depends on height of building and surrounding buildings and length of garden.