Would you consider a north-facing garden?

[Gravenwithdiamonds]

We're looking at a couple of houses this weekend and I've worked out from themap that both the gardens are north-facing (I think), they may be at a slight angle. Does this mean the back of the house will always be dark in the afternoon? Will the garden always lose the light early? Or can it depend on stuff like elevation? Both houses are on a slight hill.

Am I fretting over nothing?

depends on the size of the garden and how close other buildings/fences are.

our garden is north facing, but as we have low (4ft) walls and the building west to us is set back a bit the patio is sunny (if there is sun) from mid-day. the back of the garden is very light all day long.

what I would not consider is east facing where the house and neighbours would block all sun from morning onward.

Our garden faces pretty much due north and for the last 2 nights we have had our tea on the patio at 5/530ish. Its surprisingly sunny for most of the day and doesn't seem to be in the shadow of the house as much as we expected. A N facing garden wouldn't be a deal breaker for me if the rest of the house was lovely

And we're hoping for glass panels in the roof of our hopefully soon to be kitchen diner extension!

I could just about live with a north-facing garden but couldn't cope with a kitchen and back reception room that received no sunshine and was even more gloomy on overcast days.

We have a north north east facing garden and it's brilliant. Some part of the garden will have sun all day long and it's at the end till 9pm in summer. The very back of the house is in shade but this has been a plus for us as with small children there is always worry about too much sun and this gives us both. As long as there are plenty of windows it will be fine.
Also we have a conservatory and although we have to heat it in the winter, the rest of the year it's a lovely place to sit and never gets too hot.
Our previous house was south facing and from spring to autumn the blinds were closed as it got roasting hot so having French doors out was wasted.

I would always have said no in the past but we are renting atm and we have a north facing garden. The rear is raised up and is a terrace and it is sunny until about 8pm really really hot. So I would visit at different times and check out the shadows etc.

Yes (and I have one). What I wouldn't consider is South-facing if the garden is small. I had a friend who relentlessly went on about how wonderful South-facing gardens are and how she wouldn't consider anything else. But, I actively tried to avoid visiting her mid-Summer as her garden was such a heat trap and you'd end up sitting in it sweating. Inside suffered too, as she'd have to keep the curtains to her kitchen drawn to prevent it getting unbearably hot.

We have a small north facing garden and a tall townhouse. It "loses" the sun mid-September and it doesn't come back until the Spring! There is some morning & evening sun and the light is good, though.

It has its disadvantages, obviously, but in the main I love it. It's such a lovely calming retreat on a hot day. With good layout and lighting the kitchen is always welcoming and bright too. The sitting room faces South - so it's great to sit in on a sunny Winter's day. I never feel that I miss out on the sun.

Our current house is end of terrace - it's small with a very open hallway/stairwell so it's ery sunny all day long. The garden is sw-facing and the sitting-room at the back is too hot in summer but I do love having a sunny kitchen in the morning (kitchen at the front).

i guess I'm less concerned about the garden and more about having a very gloomy kitchen/back rooms - we spend most of time in the kitchen/eating areas and I would like it to be a bright place. Will have to see on Saturday...

With everything there are pros and cons, and normally when buying a house , apart from having to be quick incase someone else buys it, you find out after moving in. It is advised that you visit on a rainy day, when conditions at its worst, and if it's fine then, it will be even better when weather is bright. My daughter got a new neighbour who built a 2 story extension up to the boundary, and put that side of her orangery in the shade in winter, but her objections to planning office were ignored.

My parents were slightly concerned about this aspect of the house that they decided to buy. As it turns out its ideal - most of the garden is in sun for most of the day (as the house doesn't shade the full length of it) So it depends upon the length of the garden and relative height of the house.

I can measure how long theirs is as a comparison if that helps?

YY to sunny kitchens in the morning!

Not with a hangover though. Owwww.

With my childhood house kitchen, I think it had a lot to do with the small, multi-paned windows and 80s pine units. If a north-facing room feels light to you, it probably is. The sitting room here is north-facing and I wasn't expecting it to be light, but it has big windows and is on the first floor and on a wide street. It's very light.

Our garden is Northfacing but this summer the back half of the garden has been a suntrap from early morning to evening whenever we have had good weather. Our couple of seating areas have been too hot to sit at for long. I was worried the garden would not be much good (our first summer here) but I have been delighted by how fab it has turned out to be. Plus the section directly behind the house has. Even an excellent cooler area for the kids to play out in without getting burnt. If everything else about the house is perfect then I would not let a north garden put me off at all.

It's the gloomy kitchen that would put me off as you say OP. If the garden is long enough though, you could extend out into the garden and put the kitchen in the extension - that way the kitchen can be very light with glass roof etc. The dark space where the kitchen was can become a TV room/playroom/study/snug etc. Not a small job though.

My garden is south facing. It can get quite hot in the daytime. We have a terrace at the house which is too uncomfortable to sit out in during hot weather. We also have a terraced area at the end of the garden so we can enjoy the shade there from the shadow thrown by fence and summerhouse in the daytime.

I think a north facing garden sounds very comfortable if it's big enough and not shaded too much so gets some sun. It would be lovely temperature during the daytime for children.

It's not great for growing stuff, but it is lovely for doing stuff without getting too hot in summer.

The front of our house faces North and while it's dark, it's a lovely refuge from the heat. Our back yard and garden (over the road from the yard) face south and get unbearably hot. I can't even leave the back door open because it makes the house hot.

Our garden, and teh back of our house, is north facing. The plot we're on is wide though, the garden is long and flat, and there are no houses immediately behind us, and it doesn't bother me at all. We still have a lot of sun in our garden throughout the day, but its all gone by evening. Its sometimes too hot for DS to play in some areas of the garden, and if it is, we can move to a different, shady part. I really like it.

I'd say it also depends on where you are in the country. Here in Scotland I never feel the need for a refuge from the heat! Plus it affects the height and direction of the sun.

our house is end terrace, the end of the house faces east ish....my house corners are on the compass points iyswim

the courtyard is GRIM from October to April but once the sun is high enough to get over the walls (and the front of the house in summer) it is lovely

We are pretty far north though so the sun is exceptionally low here in the winter.

The house itself is fairly light, big big windows and we are higher up so catch all the sun, very little shading to the house itself in the summer

It's East Anglia, bottom of Suffolk - weather tends to be dry and bright. Both houses are quite high up and detached - I don't think they're very overlooked but will see. Quite addicted to Bing maps now!

I've measured my parent's garden on Googleearth, so not very scientific - and its 13m from the house to the back fence and 15m from the garage (house is along the front edge of a corner plot) Its a standard 2 storey house, 1970s. They have a very productive small veg garden. There is always somewhere to sit out in the sun. The back of the house is shaded during the middle of the day, but because you're looking out onto sunny garden, it doesn't feel dark. The terrace (behind the garage)(where the roof is lower) gets sun from about 2pm onwards to the extent that they're going to put up some shading. Finding shady places to sit is actually more of a problem than finding sunny ones!

My house is on a NE-SW axis, the back garden is the NE bit.

In the house where I grew up the back garden was south facing and I remember having the curtains closed all the time as the sun either beamed directly into your face or bounced off the tv so we could hardly see it. The rooms were all on the back (it was a weird 70's style) so there was no escape.

So, this house, I have no immediate neighbour to my west which helps. We get sun at the bottom end of the garden in the morning when the sun rises over the house, then it moves its way down the garden as the day goes on. Right now I have full sun.

I actually love the fact that we have two patio areas, one at the top of the garden where we can sit in sunshine, the other is next to the house so stays shady till lunch. That means my albino white haired child can play without being in direct sunshine. Plus I get sun stoke in this country (West Yorkshire!) so I like the shade

My lounge is on the back, the dining room is at the front which I like having breakfast in there in the morning light. My kitchen is at the back. It is teeny and we are having an extension built next year, I am having rooflights put in.

Regarding rooms that face north, I think it depends on how many windows there are and the size of the windows. I have french doors in a bay window so I have 2 full height glass doors, plus 4 windows in the bay and another window.

We inherited a huge tree which overshadowed the garden and my son's bedroom so we had it removed. It made a huge difference.

Good luck with your viewings, take a photo of the garden that way if you book to second view, go at a different time and take another photo so you can see how much sun you get.

Thank you mistle and fizzy, you have given me hope,especially as my favourite one looks like it's also on a NE/SW axis - it's reasonably big with sitting room and study at the front and dining room and kitchen and conseratory at the back so I guess you could follow the sun around the house- assuming the back gets some!

Thanks for your replies.

Out of interest, I understand that 'down south' it is not recommended that conservatories are on the southern elevation because they get to hot - so if the conservatory's on the back that sounds ideal