How bad is a north facing rear garden?

[bajanasinpajamas]

We currently have a south facing back garden. Have SSTC, and are looking around but very little on the market. We (I) had my heart set on either west or south facing rear garden, but there is NOTHING!
We’ve seen a couple of houses that tick most boxes except they have north facing rear gardens. All I want is to be able to sit out in the evening sun after a day at work - is there going to be any chance of this ?

My garden is nnw facing...in the summer we get sun into the evening. That's not the issue so much. The issue is in the winter/autumn when the sun doesn't touch it throughout the day. I really really dislike it

Like others have said, so much depends on what else is around the garden, what size it is, what you'd like to grow...

We have a south facing garden, but tall trees right on the other side of the fence, so it's very shady. No chance of cottage garden style flowerbeds for us! On the plus side, the shade makes the garden lovely in hot weather - without the shade it would be unbearably hot. The front garden is north facing and much more exposed, so aside from the bit closest to the wall it gets more light than the far end of the back garden.

That looks like a long and narrow garden. I think you will get sun at night. Darker in winter but so is everywhere. Are you directly due north?

I would buy a north facing garden but never again a small east facing garden. We lost sun by 11am!

We have z north west facing garden, get sun all day apart from the patio right next to the house which has shade.

The garden is, roughly, 15m long x 6.5m wide. I’ve not measured it and the agent didn’t do particulars.

i have no idea about gardens and haven’t really considered them as part of buying before but now we are spending a huge amount of money on a house in London which is going to be very long term, I have started to think about whether the garden is going to be okay. I stood in front of it with my phone compass and this is the reading!

NE and I hate not having the sun in the late afternoon/evening

This website tells you all you need to know.

You can adjust by month and time of day.

shademap.app

Depends on the size of the garden. Mine is north facing (very slightly turned to the NW) but there is a great suntrap at the end that is out of the shadow of the house even in the winter.
It gets morning sun at an angle, sun at the bottom end all day and plenty of evening sun.

We’ve got a north facing back garden and have the sun all day. It really depends what’s around you and casting shadows. We’re on a corner plot (sounds grander than it is!).

there’s a website you can use to track shadows on any location. I can’t remember the name. Your favourite search engine will find it for you.

edit to add: or a PP will remember the name and link it for you!

That website is really helpful. Thanks!

We have a small north facing garden with a tall house so lose all sun by 5pm and none on our patio after lunch - I love our house but will move before too long purely because of this so as other have said just make sure it's big enough that you don't get house/tree shadow over it and there are seating areas for different times of day.

Ours is NW, possibly more NWW and quite wide. It is bloody gorgeous, a fantastic part of our house.

I had a north facing, hated it, by about 4pm there was a small triangle of sunshine in a corner, we'd fight over who sat in it.
Late afternoon/early evening BBQs were out of the question, we'd have to supply family with fleeces or blankets.
Sometimes I'd come home from work and have a cuppa sat on the front doorstep where it was sunny.
I have a south facing now, it's absolutely wonderful.
I'd really give a north facing a miss unless you don't plan to use your garden

I prefer north facing. Our rear smallish garden is full of sun loving plants. Summer sun off patio by 5pm but I hate sitting in the sun anyhow. Its about midway down the garden in the early eve. Front of house gets bright sunshine through the bedroom windows in the morning but the rear of the house stays very cool.

North West facing in South East England, large garden. Absolutely perfect. Sun stays on the patio until late evening. If we had a South facing it would be unbearable. We spend the entire summer with all the front windows, blinds and curtains closed and the front of the house is burnt and crispy. Lovely in the Winter though as any sun heats up the lounge. As others have said, a kitchen facing North at the back is a godsend in midsummer.

There is nothing I can't grow in my garden either, we have plenty of trees (for shade!), and also lots of shrubs, roses, flowers, very country cottage.

i like my north facing garden. We get sun all day and it’s not a big garden at all

I prefer to get sun in my south facing living room because it’s lovely and light and warm all year round

my previous 2 houses had north east facing gardens and thankfully due to the house plot we still got a lot of sun. My last house you did have to move to get the late evening sun but the garden was big enough to fit in the different seating areas
my current house is south west facing and it actually get almost too hot. The back of the house is always boiling on a nice day.

Depends on the specifics. We moved from a house with a south facing garden saying Never Again, as it was often just too hot to use. Now have a small north east facing garden and it's beautifully shady and cool on a hot day but also has a surprising amount of light further down the garden as there are gaps between houses around and low buildings letting light in.
As a PP said it's also about which rooms in your house get light.

Lots of variables. Ours is north facing back, but 168ft long. It's all bungalows our side,sun rises in the east it's in the conservatory and on the patio. After clocks go forward in march,it's over the roof, the north facing conservatory has reached 40c, then it runs along the front south facing,in the evening it's down the bottom to the west,on the veg plot, but there's a seat there. We had a south facing quarter of an acre, and watering was an absolute nightmare,we used to go right down the bottom and sit under an oak tree.

I suppose it depends on 1.how big the garden is and 2. The area around it/buildings/trees etc. Some north facing gardens (particularly n/w) will get sun at some point. I really disagree with the posts saying south facing gardens are a bad thing - I have a SW facing garden and it’s an absolute dream (then again I’m north so we take all the sun we can get!!!) It’s gorgeous when the sun shines in the back door. Thats the only thing that would put me off a south facing one, if the back of the house was really dark.

I am not certain but if you take the height of your house and say it’s 30ft then you would want your garden to be longer than 30ft if not then your house will be shaded during the day by your own house when the sun is facing south but you will get the sun in the morning, east and later afternoon, west. . If you have a town house, usually called because it has 3 storeys, then your house height will be taller and you will need a longer garden to get sun. We have a detached double garage on a north facing plot so get lots of sun as it’s a single storey and the sun is over it very quickly. All this again depends on any trees or buildings that block the sun. This applies to a north facing house. It will be different to a NE and NW facing garden.

This is brilliant!

Not 100% but genius idea.

Our garden faces south east and it gets too hot in the day but then loses the sun by 6.30 ish, so don't get any evening sun which I'd prefer!

Our old house had a north facing garden, this one has a south facing one - so we've gone from one extreme to the other. North-facing didn't bother me much - meant there was shade in lots of the garden which I always liked when the kids were small and played out there, but the end of the garden had a patio which got afternoon/evening sun when needed - but the house was short and fat (bit like the owner) so the shadow cast by it was smaller if that makes sense?

This one is south facing - back of the house can get incredibly hot from lunchtime onwards, but I do like going out my office (the old dining room) French doors to have a cuppa sat on the decking in the sun on a nice day - it wasn't a deal breaker though - was more an accidental coincidence that the house we liked from the inside happened to point in this direction. It has, however, meant that we could get solar panels fitted easier which has made DH happy - and made the rest of the house want to murder him with his sodding power generation graph phone app.

My north facing garden didn’t get the memo about most plants not thriving and 2 years down the line I am still trying to get on top of it as the previous owner had sadly been ill and it had got out of hand and was extremely overgrown.

Sadly I couldn’t save a huge clematis montana that was growing through the huge apple tree when trying to sort the apple tree as I couldn’t see where it started, along with the philadephus growing out of it but luckily there is another big philadelphus the other side of the garden, along with what is a buddleia, a white lilac, numerous hardy fuchsia (one was huge), camellia, flowering currant, bay tree so a great structure to start with along with some perennials such as hardy geranium, Japanese anemone, crocosmia, sedum, roses, phlox, valerian, toadflax, hydrangea and others I can’t remember now plus some raspberries. Found some beautiful ferns under the apple tree and some astilbe.

I have been planting and have more to do yet but have added more perennials - roses, lavender, astrantia, penstemons, peony, salvias, scabious, foxgloves, dahlias, more hardy geraniums . Early days yet but so far so good. Have also added a few more fruit trees, strawberries, rhubarb. The soil is quite dry and sandy so needs work but my compost heaps will hopefully help in time. I have some new raised beds which haven’t been filled properly yet but decided to give them a go anyway and so far so good, they get sun most of the day. The greenhouse is still a work in progress but the one tomato plant I put in it last year did well despite a lot of neglect.

There’s a great mix sunny areas with some shady bits so I can grow a good range of plants and my favourite out of the 5 gardens I have had. The patio at the back gets a lot of sun and the main patio is quite big and gets a decent amount but it is lovely to have somewhere to sit with some shade when it is really sunny. As others have said it really depends on thee garden. The shade map thing doesn’t work very well for mine and has mine in a lot more shade than both neighbours. It really does depend on a variety of things as others have said.