North facing garden...is it worth it

mjane93

Thank you all! I think we are going to do a second viewing to be sure but I think we were just overthinking everything with us being FTB. Luckily hubs is a general builder/ carpenter so he can knock me out a great little patio further down the garden if we do end up buying it 🤣

[Deleted User]

mjane93 said:

Thank you all! I think we are going to do a second viewing to be sure but I think we were just overthinking everything with us being FTB. Luckily hubs is a general builder/ carpenter so he can knock me out a great little patio further down the garden if we do end up buying it 🤣

Don't be too hasty. I'd recommend you keep your garden design easily and cheaply rearrangable (is that a word?) in the first year. There's more to a garden than where the sunshine falls. It's not unusual to get little microclimates going on. Patches that are warmer or cooler, patches that catch the worst of any breeze etc. Then there's your neighbours, where can they see in, and where will you be able to hear them most if they're noisy etc.

You won't know any of that from one viewing. And what's true now in April may not be true by June or September. If you go for hard landscaping straight away, then realise 6 months on that you wish you'd stuck it over there instead, you've got a lot of work and expense gone to waste. I made this mistake. I built a lively patio. It gets used as a junk storage area and our chairs go on the lawn. But the rest of the garden I keep fairly flexible, and have changed multiple times over 10 years, to the point its now just about how I want it. 

AdrianC

mjane93 said:

I’ve only just realised that it has a north facing garden. We didn’t even notice at first as it’s a rather long garden so about half of it was still getting sun. 

It's not about the direction per se, it's about where the shadows are.

It's still early in the year, with low sun - yet half the garden is already out of the shade of the house. As the sun gets higher, the shadow will get shorter.

Scotbot

Mine is North facing. It all depends on how long it is and what is behind it. I get sun all day after the clocks change in at least half the garden. The prevous owners put a seating and patio area at the bottom which is lovely for alfresco dining. You will definitely get more sun in the summer months than when you viewed. The plus side is the living room is at the front of the house and bathed in light even in winter.

Ally_E.

Our garden is north facing. We are end of terrace, so no one is blocking us from the west and also no one is blocking the sun from the back of the garden. Our garden is fairly small at 12 meters long and 4.5m wide. We have sun in the garden at various spots all day long. Until 12-1pm it's mostly all of the garden and then the sun comes back round and we get sunny spots around the back of the garden where we have the shed. No, it's not so bad.

OldMusicGuy

We've just bought a house with a north-facing garden and we love it. Far more practical than our south-west facing garden at our previous house. We get sun across most of the back half of the garden all day, and in the late afternoon/evening, almost all of the western end of the garden gets the sun. The only place that is permanently in shade is the eastern quarter close to the house. So we get plenty of sun in the garden away from the house and have a lovely cool shady spot close to the house.

In our previous house the garden closest to the house was like an oven, too hot to sit in so we had to build a shady pergola. Also we looked from the house towards the rear of the garden which was in shade so we could not see it, being blinded by the sun as well.

We actually prefer a north facing garden now. However, a lot depends on how other houses around you may impact your light. We don't have anything behind us, just a glorious view to the hills. 

Tiglet2

I love my north/north west facing garden, but it is long and wide and there is nothing blocking the sun other than our own property, so the bit immediately outside the back door is in shade but everything else is sunny.   I have had a south facing garden before, but prefer the way it is now.

sgun

I would absolutely hate it. In fact I wouldn't even view houses with north facing gardens. Friends of ours bought in haste and only realised after buying that to get any sun after they get home from work they need to sit in the front garden which isn't private. So it isn't really about what other people think - it's about how much having sun in the evenings is a deal breaker for you - and how much sun you will actually get in the evenings (potentially not much if there are other buildings shading the light).

[Deleted User]

sgun said:

I would absolutely hate it. In fact I wouldn't even view houses with north facing gardens. Friends of ours bought in haste and only realised after buying that to get any sun after they get home from work they need to sit in the front garden which isn't private. So it isn't really about what other people think - it's about how much having sun in the evenings is a deal breaker for you - and how much sun you will actually get in the evenings (potentially not much if there are other buildings shading the light).

Sounds like one example of a really bad experience. Unless the garden is exactly North facing and very short, it's going to get some sun, even in the evening.

In my North North East facing back garden, the last of the evening sunshine lands right in the corner where I built the first of two patios. The front only gets maybe half an hour more sunshine max. 

But you're right. There are situations where you'd get no sun in the evening, but I think these are the exception rather than the rule. 

Irishpearce26

Just moved from a south facing garden to a north facing last month. I have to say that I prefer the north facing, enough sun to warm the garden but with little pockets of shade for my toddler to play in. Our south facing garden had no shade and it was a nightmare with a little one, constantly moving umbrellas etc and trying to keep him in one place was difficult. The north facing garden gets enough sun for plant life to thrive and the right amount of shade. The north is the new south...