Which is worse, north or east facing garden?

[susan198130]

We are looking to buy a new house. I absolutely love the sun and we currently have a south facing garden, but are moving out of the area. There are currently 2 houses in the running both of which seem perfect, except for the back gardens, one is east facing and the other is north facing. Both houses, the gardens are long enough that I don't think they will be completely swamped in the house shadow.

I've only ever lived in houses with a south facing or west facing garden. So I'm just wondering, if you had to pick one, which would you choose, north or east? I'm not a big gardener, so plants aren't an issue, it's just that I do like the sun.

I would choose East for morning sun in the house. The end of the garden would get sun in the evening.

Our last house was an east facing semi with an average sized (for a 3 bed semi), rectangular shaped garden. Most of the garden was in full sun for the afternoon with it gradually getting more shade from around 4ish with the bottom corner in sun until around 5.30/6pm in summer.

I'd go east facing.

I'd pick east.

We have an East facing garden and a long garden and we get sun all day, but only down the end in the evenings. We just have two little seating areas, one by the house for a morning coffee and another down end for an evening G&T in the evening sun

No experience with north tho.

We’ve got a north east facing garden, it’s long enough that the majority of it gets the sun all day in the summer. The patio next to the house loses sun first, probably after about 1 in the summer months. So I think it depends on the length of the garden. I was worried we wouldn’t have much sun but I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

EW house orientation is my favourite. There’s always somewhere bright and sunny in the house. The E facing garden will have lovely sun in the morning so particularly good if you’re around then but if it’s long enough, you’ll get evening sun at the back.

We have had 2 east facing gardens. They get as much sun as a west facing garden, just earlier in the day (which suits me!). We have a small patio next to the house and it gets used much more than the one at the end of the garden, we get sun there until mid afternoon so it's not an issue at all.

East facing is great, I love that at the hottest part of the day you don't get the heat at the back of the house where you're more likely to be. We're getting another east facing house which I am pleased with.

Our current house is always absolutely boiling in the back of the house in the afternoon which is a definite downside, especially as that's where my office is and the kids bedroom. An absolute furnace in there during the day.

So sounds like east is better than north then, thank you!

East is better - Common sense really.

But why is it common sense? I was edging towards north because with east, you will have the shadow of the house right over your garden and lose the sun behind the house towards the end of the day which is when the day will be at its coolest...

It's common sense because with a north facing house you'll never get the sun at the back of your house where you're most likely to be in your garden. Especially if you have a small garden close to other houses, you may not get direct sun at all.

But I don't mind if I don't get sun on the back of the house, I just want sun in the garden and I did say that both houses have gardens long enough that the house probably wouldn't create a shadow over the whole garden

North is worse. Our house has garden all around and the north side has damp/mildewy tiles and is generally damper than the East side.

My front garden is North facing and it's a pleasant garden. The sun is on most of it anyway most of the day from the sun shining from behind the property [south] and in the evening from the west. However it's a bungalow so there isn't a high roof to cast a bigger shadow like a two storey house's roof would.

A lot of plants grow well in it, and I often sit on the front garden in preference to the back garden when the weather is extremely hot. It's fine.

If you’ve got a S facing garden, then imagine it’s the other way round. N side, like the front of your house never gets any sun either in the fro t garden or the rooms at the front of the property aren’t sunny either.

However, you can get sun elsewhere in a N facing garden depending on size, tres, other houses etc.

With an E facing garden, you’ll get lots of sun early in the day, sun at the back later of if it’s long enough + rooms inside the house will also be bright and sunny am or pm.

We've got a South/East facing garden but it's over 100ft so the bottom half gets sun right into the evening, like PP we have a patio at both ends and it means whilst our downstairs is bright and light it's never unbearably hot in the summer, best of both worlds

I had a north facing garden and it was pretty good. We got blazing hot sun from lunchtime to 4pm in the front of the back garden and then from 5pm onwards towards the back.

Current house is south facing garden and it’s boiling

I would choose East, I like houses in east-west orientation.

I'd go east if big enough. But depends on where other buildings are (not in your garden).

Have had 2 east facing gardens. Small modern house with usual sized garden has crap light all day, old ex council semi on a sloping plot had light in the garden until dusk because it was high enough up and far enough away.

Definitely East facing Vs N facing

House I grew up in had both N & W facing parts of garden : N always in shade

I have an E/W facing house too - it’s lovely and light as PP says above

Obviously I’d love a SW facing garden best, I’m considering a house which is ESE... all houses have trade offs

I'm facing this exact dilemma! Want to move on from our house for various reasons but it's plus side is a south-facing garden (albeit small). All the nice houses seem to have North-East facing gardens - is NE the worst of both?!!

@maddenlightfoot: better than just N, but not much

I said no to an otherwise perfect house with a N facing garden as I thought it would chip away at me over time (regretting not finding a S or W facing garden )

You can change a house, but you can’t spin the garden round, unfortunately

Surely it depends massively on the size and shape of not only the garden and your house but also any other houses that are around it? We have a MASSIVE south facing with the house oriented with the long sides N/S and the short sides E/W. In summer the house is a furnace, the garden has no shade whatsoever from sunrise to sunset and everything is bleached from the sun. In the winter one end of the house is freezing and rain find every available crack to seep in through. But if we weren’t basically in the middle of a field a lot of the things I absolutely hate about this place would be less of an issue. A north facing garden on this plot would be a disaster because of the farm buildings to the north eclipsing everything because of their height, but an east facing garden would be very nice indeed thankyou! I’d happily turn our whole plot round by 90 degrees either way really. But if we were surrounded by other houses then perhaps less so. Equally if the farm buildings weren’t there then I’d happily plump for a long north facing garden which got sun at the end if you wanted to take advantage.

From looking at the house, I feel like come the end of the day, the far end of the garden could get some good sun. When we viewed the house, it was in the middle of the afternoon on a hot sunny day and there was plenty of sun.

@maddenlightfoot we've found exactly the same thing. It's almost like people with South or West facing gardens aren't selling! My sister and sister in law both have north-east facing gardens. They get good sun during the day, but come the end of the day, it's pretty much all in the shade. My sister's garden is long enough that you can grab a bit of sun at the end, but it's just nothing in comparison to my garden which is south facing.