North facing garden

[TeaChocKitKat]

I am hoping to move house soon. Ive seen a house i love in a great location which ticks all of my boxes but Ive realised the garden is north facing. Im no sun worshipper but I am a fairly keen gardener. The garden is quite overgrown at the moment so is very much a project but is a north facing garden a real no go? Can you grow anything in it? The house is perfect apart from that! Ive viewed so many houses and its the first one i could really see us living in.

How big is the garden and how close are your neighbours? I wouldn't want northfacing small garden but if it's large enough and not shadowed by neighbours houses/trees it might be ok. For reference mine is 5x11m and I would want it to be at least 3-4 times bigger if it was north-facing.

Probably depends on the size. I had a north facing garden in my last house which always got sun at the back as it was long. Current house also north facing but much smaller and house much taller so no sun really from end of Oct to March. Still have plenty of plants growing tho and it was lovely in the heatwave as not too hot!

Can I ask what you plant? we have a north facing front that's concrete and has all the charm of a petrol station forecourt. Can't rip it up (we're flats) so it will have to be tubs. I'm thinking along the lines of a small acer to add some colour, but the place doesn't get sun at all in the winter.

I’ve only ever had north-facing gardens (cheaper!) and while it’s a bit annoying not having sun right outside your back door for a kitchen garden, they do still get light. We’ve just moved to one that’s all concrete which we’ve yet to sort, but our neighbours on either side have lavender, tomatoes, roses, rosemary, etc. Everyone puts their patio and garden table and chairs at the back where it gets most sun.

I had lots of luck with certain rambling David Austin roses in my last north-facing garden. And obviously shade-loving plants! The main thing is they get quite swampy in winter the closer you are to the house, so lavender needs to go at the back where it won’t get bogged; grass goes a bit boggy near the house too, and if you plant the “wrong” plant it will get quite leggy: we ended up with some very Triffid-like verbena, and my alliums grew but never took on colour because not enough sun. It’s more interesting to experiment with though than a classic south- or west-facing garden. And lovely pools of shade during the heatwaves.

The counterpoint to a north-facing garden is a south-facing front! So lovely bright sitting rooms and a sun-drenched front garden to indulge in sun-loving plants.

The only house I lived in with a north facing garden was really annoying. Sun poured through the lounge windows when you were trying to watch TV and at the same time the kitchen was so dark you had to have the lights on.

What's the layout of the house?

I have a north facing garden and I have an apple tree, plum tree and rapsberry bush. Also a variety of shrubs. It's fairly small garden and it depends on what you want to grow. There are plenty of plants that will grow in partial shade.

You can try ferns, sweet box, hydrangea, daphane, hebe and skimmia. They all do pretty well in my north facing back garden.

I have a North facing garden and I have so many plants. Fruit trees, acers, hydrangeas, camelias, roses, azaleas, cordylines, heucheras, ferns and many more. Obviously it depends on the light your individual garden gets but just being North facing doesn't mean nothing at all will grow.

I’m a keen gardener with a north facing garden. I grow everything I want, but it’s not overshadowed by trees so does get quite a lot of light. I’ve found the soil more limiting, I’m on heavy clay. I’d never be put off by north facing unless it was absolutely tiny.

We have michaelmas daisys and loads of stuff I don't know the names of! Pansies, bushes with berries, roses etc
My neighbour grows plums, apples and raspberries

My garden is north north east facing, but because of the biggish gap between us and next door, and the size of surrounding gardens, I get partial shade in some parts of the garden, and have a patch that’s full sun.
So don’t despair. And there are lots of lovely shade loving plants, they can be a bit trickier to source though (ie not loads of choice in garden centres)

I would avoid a north facing garden unless it was very long or the property was a bungalow or chalet.

My garden is north facing but it's a decent length so although the back of the house doesn't get much sun or any at all in the winter, during the summer late afternoon onwards, it streams into the utility and kitchen, dining room and bathroom.

My garden is full of plants and shrubs, two Acers, two flowering cherry plus lots of flowers still blooming even now with very little sun. Begonias, fuchsias, trailing geraniums, lavender and osteospermums.

I'd buy north facing again as long as the garden wasn't really tiny.

I have quite a small north facing garden and I honestly think it's fine.

I'm not one for wanting to sit in the sun anyway - I'd rather sit in the shade looking out into the sun. I also haven't really found it's really limited what I can grow - or rather, it's not limited the amount I can grow

I've had south facing gardens before now and sitting on the patio, in the sun, has been far too hot for me.

I have a long north east facing garden. It's lovely and sunny as house is small compared to garden length.
If you have a three story house and a short garden it's going to be very different

It’s ok if your not a sun worshipper and don’t plan on drying washing outside.

We hate ours.

A north facing garden was a no no on my search list and we have...a n nw facing garden. We get lots of sun in the summer months, but from this time of year on it just creeps in for a bit.
I wouldn't have a small n nw facing garden, mine is approx 10m x 25m I think. We have an area which we are planning to move our seating area to as it gets the morning sun from between the houses and then all afternoon and is the last spot to get it at the end of the day. Where it currently is we lose the direct sun around 5pm.
Ours was also overgrown with bramble, jasmine and other weeds. It took a lot of work but was very much worth it.

I dry my washing outside in a north-facing garden: three-storey terrace and the garden is small, it’s not an issue. Because wind dries clothes as much as sun!

@UnderHisPie that's a lovely garden. Similar to ours in size too.

I dry my clothes too. I still have a load outside today. It's the wind that dries the clothes for me.

I don't sit in the sun, so maybe that's the difference.

Us too, @stuntbubbles - and I find clothes colours are less 'bleached' in this garden than when I used to hang them out in south facing gardens.

This is a plus and a minus: sometimes I'd use the sunlight to bleach out things like lily pollen stains.

Thanks!

It's not to everyone's tastes and is porbably a bit busy compared to more modern gardens but I wanted to just illustrate how MUCH could be grown in a NF garden.

I haven't yet really come across something that cannot be grown out there and even in a small garden, there are at least 5 different micro climates to choose growing location from.

I'm a professional gardener and would always choose a north facing garden. Now the summers are getting so much hotter plants in south facing gardens get scorched and require masses of watering. Unless you're a very keen sun worshipper they can be too hot to sit in too. You can grow a huge range of plants in a north facing garden. The fact that the OPs potential garden is so overgrown now demonstrates how wall many plant thrive in a shadier garden.
Estate agents have done a brilliant job of making us all want south facing gardens. If the garden is longer than the shadow of the house then it doesn't really matter. I dry my washing outside all year round in a north facing garden.

My garden is north facing, but long and thin and there’s no houses behind us. My greenhouse is at the end of the garden and got too hot this summer, even with a shade net so I’m looking at greenhouse paint for next summer. I’ve grown all sorts of fruit and veg.

Things that are doing well close to the house where there’s minimal light in winter are a camellia, a smoke tree, an acer, I think a Kerria (it’s been crowded out by a honeysuckle that grows well but doesn’t flower much). I also have a herb garden in pots that does well as long as I’m diligent with watering in summer.

Embrace woodland planting, which can be lovely and lush. I have a tiny private south facing front garden (Scotland, so not scorching) which is my "new perennials" project, and a shared north facing back garden, and the latter is a bit more rewarding as a gardener. Mine is quite damp shade btw - dry shade a bit different. Get Beth Chatto's book on woodland gardening, for starters.

I especially love (interspersed with less showy plants!)

Japanese anemone Honorine Jobert's white flowers leaping out of the semi-shade (plant en masse, or wait to spread, which they will)

Rogersias (I love big-leaved plants - I have aescufolia and another one)

Primula vialii, really vivid red and purple for a shade plant, but elegant with it due to the long stalks

Brunnera Jack frost, I was initially sceptical but someone left some on a kerb for free, and now I love the white detail against more monotone greens of other plants

Japanese forest grass for texture and a lush, wafty feel

If I had a more grand garden I would also plant Fritillaria crown imperial like Beth Chatto did, but they'd look a bit gaudy here

I'd go with everyone else and say it depends on how long it is and also what is around it. If the house to the south shades it completely and there is shade to both sides then it is probably going to be dark and difficult to grow grass. A conservatory will most likely be very cold in winter, but OK in the summer.

Positives are that you will have a cool(er) space to go to in the summer, and in the winter the sun will come in through the front windows and warm the living space.

My garden is SE facing, and quite short, but is open along the southern boundary, which makes it "almost" south facing. A lot of people seem to forget it's not just about the shade being on one boundary, it's about what shades all of them, especially on the east, west and south.