I don’t understand why south facing gardens are sought after

[Uncomplicated]

I was wondering if someone could help explain this to me. I have googled it and it says if you exit your house and stand in the garden with your back to the house and your compass points south, then your garden is south facing. But why is that so important? Surely if you are in anything but a south facing garden you can just position yourself or your chair so you are south facing. Also how does a south facing garden apparently get more sun? Is it because your house isn’t blocking the sun? Because even if your house doesn’t block the sun, your neighbours probably will.

We have a small garden in a large city suburb which faces N/NW. On paper not ideal and it’s dark in winter but I love it! It’s a mature garden which gets the sun all morning and until around 5pm- perfect for us with small kids as we are out in the day. There’s a corner that gets the sun til it goes down so we plan on building a raised deck and putting our table and chairs there.
We wouldn’t have afforded the same house with a S facing garden so I’m very grateful for it! A good friend bought a lovely sunny south facing garden and spends a lot of time fretting about keeping their kids cool/out the sun. Swings and roundabouts!

We have a south facing garden, it’s glorious with a bit of sun, way too hot for me on a sunny day.
the front of the house is north facing, bloody cold and damp feeling in the front garden,
I often describe them as being in different weather systems

I have a detached house with gardens also all four sides and definitely notice a difference in what grows where.

Main back garden is south-southwest aspect and it’s a sun trap that produces lots of growth- great for flowers, fruit, and vegetables.

The kitchen/livingroom is at the back of the house so SSW and gets great light throughout the day and into evening.

Our bedroom faces North said it tends to stay lovely and cool all year round.

I wouldn’t buy a house with just a north-facing garden.

I love my south facing garden. I love the huge array of plants in it.

l wouldn’t look at a house without one.

My garden is south east facing and it's perfect. I get the sun from early morning until early evening at this time of year. I once lived in a house with a north facing garden and the garden was so gloomy and damp that I once saw a frog hopping around. Never again.

Just fired the compass up and mine reads 162 S.

I live in SW France.
The front of my house faces east, perfect for the bedrooms. The garden is mainly at one end so is full south with a strip behind the house which is west.
We have one guest bedroom which is full south facing and gets incredibly hot in summer.
Our kitchen is underneath this room but a huge covered terrace shades it from the sun although it's freezing in winter.
Our living room is east to west with small windows and is cool in summer.
Of course we have shutters too.

We had to learn how to live in our house and at 11am in summer all windows are closed and shutters pulled halfway.
If a house is unbearably hot it's most likely because windows were left open not just sun coming through glass.

We once lived in a house in the UK with a large north facing back garden and even in summer the house was in shade at the back and the front was bathed in sun. Totally the wrong way round for me.
I would never have a north facing garden again.

Our garden faces north west and I love it. We get plenty of sun, especially in the afternoon and evening. We have a long border on the right hand side that gets sun for most of the day. It's a long garden though. I'd hate a garden where there was no shade.

I have never been able to understand it either OP. I don't live in the UK but have never in my many years on this earth heard anyone state a preference for a garden facing any way. People are far more interested in the amount of sun a house gets than the garden.

We have a large south west facing garden which gets a lot of sun.

Our house is an old cottage which doesn't get a lot of natural sunlight inside so can be quite cold and is prone to damp.

I wouldn't change it though as I love it the sunny garden.

Our back garden in South facing and our front is faces North. I like them both. The South facing one is considerably bigger and sunnier. The North facing one has a shaded area from the shadow of the house and is sunny beyond that. I find the atmosphere of a garden is more important than its aspect.

Ours is south facing and also exposed and the plants dry out continually. It’s too hot to sit in during summer and that side of the house is boiling with even the slightest bit of sun. Previous house was west facing with mature trees for shade and was perfect, I have also had a north facing small garden and would take that over the south one any day, despite the challenges.

Our house faces east-west so we have sun on the front of the house - which includes the living room in the morning , and on the back in the afternoon-evening . Back garden gets sun from mid morning until around 6 pm. Used to be longer but house behind now has some very tall trees which now shade our garden as the sun starts to go down . It's a bit annoying .

I agree with the poster who spoke of winter sun though - I quite often sit out in February with my coat on just to feel the sun in the early afternoon .

I do like the sound of south but one thing I like is the living room getting morning sun and kitchen evening sun

We have a north facing garden, we didnt choose it specifically for that, but Im so glad we do have this. Our conservatory is usable all year round and there is enough sun in our garden for what we want. We dont like heat or hot temperatures and it means the bedrooms stay cool. The garden is very sunny right now. We have a lot of tall shrubs at the back which need cutting back really to open it up a bit more, its a very small garden only 15 foot from the back of the conservatory about 30 foot from the house if the conservatory wasnt there.

We have a bungalow with a north facing garden, we see sunshine in our garden for about 10 months a year where the roof is so low, also we don't have blazing sunshine in our ways then it's a sunny day, and the living room at the back is nice and cool, I love this set up and probably wouldn't fancy it the other way round 😅

Our garden is north facing. I'm sitting out here right now, in sunshine with a cup of tea & a book. Lovely.

It can get quite hot mid afternoon too.

The back of our house faces South. It gets the sun for most of the day although since they built houses next to us (set back slightly) we lose the sun on the patio at around 7pm in Summer.
Our front garden is in the shade for most of the day. The front lawn is mostly moss and in the winter the cars rarely defrost by themselves as they are constantly in the shade. The front rooms are darker and colder as they don't get any daytime sunlight - so it's not just the gardens that are affected.

I have a three storey house. Small garden faces NNW. No sun between the end of October and February. Summer months it's warm and very sunny. Washing dries on the line really quickly.

Plus it means your front rooms are north-facing: in the classic Victorian terrace layout most master bedrooms are at the front, and a house with a north-facing garden has a south-facing bedroom: which means sunshine very early in summer, horrible hot nights, etc. And your sitting room is also baking in heat and you can’t fling the windows and doors wide open to the street because traffic/security/etc.

Then your kitchen, the heart of the house, is cold and dark, and you can’t keep a kitchen garden close to the back door for herbs and such because it’s all shady. On rainy evenings I hate having to trek up to the sunnier rear of our north-facing garden to snip thyme or rosemary because it’s such a slugfest to get there, and a pain. And no sunny windowsills to grow basil!

My north facing garden does get sun here and there, but its a lot of chasing the sunbeam around the garden with a deckchair.
Im glad our next house is south facing garden as i think it will be lovely in the summer and will be better for clothes drying.

Window-boxes at the front for your herbs. Job done.

Very slightly south west is best according to our architect (in Yorkshire)

My last house had a south facing garden. It was open plan downstairs so it meant the whole house was boiling hot as soon as the sun made an appearance for summer. It was at times unbearable.

We now live in a house with a NNW garden and I absolutely love it. Luckily we have a long garden, so there is sun in parts of it all year. But right now, on a sunny day at 11am our whole garden has sunshine apart from a 1 metre strip on the patio where the house casts its shadow. This is perfect. The house is warm but never gets boiling hot, even on a hot summers day. All the bedrooms cool down for evenings. Our front garden looks lovely too.

For all those complaining they have no natural shade in their gardens... you do realise you can create shade?

I'm finding it far too windy of late for our parasol, but there are so many options now for permanent/semi permanent shade. You cannot add more sun to a garden that doesn't get a lot though. This is definitely something to consider.