North or North-East?
 

We are buying a new-build on a development. There are two houses up for grabs with 60 foot gardens.

One of the houses has a North facing garden and the other has a North-East facing garden.

Which would you choose?

PS we are in South London.

Thanks

Presumably you mean the rear-side of the house is N or NE facing. Clearly, in general the NE facing house would shade the garden a little less, but this might be irrelevant if there is another building due south of the garden, eg, next door, if it is a wall-like housing development. What is the condition of light from the sides? You might like to think whether you'd get any light in the garden late of a summer afternoon, which I think is a particularly useful time for it. Also consider the far end of the garden. The far end of a north-facing garden is south-facing, and the NE one SW facing, provided it isn't excessively overlooked by the housing at the other end, or otherwise shaded. These are good directions for plants that like to be roasted.

Personally I'd think that light into the rooms of the house might be more important. I like having an east-facing bedroom (sun in the morning) and a west-facing lounge (sun in the evening). Assuming that you are heavily overlooked by buildings fomr teh side, an EW oriented house is ideal for me. Though less useful for putting solar cells on the roof.

North or North-East?
 

"deebs" wrote

We are buying a new-build on a development. There are two houses up for
grabs with 60 foot gardens.

One of the houses has a North facing garden and the other has a
North-East facing garden.

Which would you choose?

PS we are in South London.

Whichever you choose with a 60ft rear garden you will be able to have a
patio/sun trap in the sun, just have to be down the bottom of the garden
instead of near the house. However you must look at how the sun reaches the
garden, how many other buildings, trees, etc shade it. Check it at different
times of the day. If there is a sunny spot down the garden right now it will
be better in the summer when the sun is higher.
Our garden is NNE facing and much shorter than yours, it's not a problem,
you just have to choose the right plants for a bit of shade, or rather, lack
of direct sun. Some of the plants I grow would not like it any other way.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK

North or North-East?
 

g'day deebs,

just as a casual observer and one who looks at aspects when buying
homes, for us down under the northern around to eastern aspects are
ideal as they give us good sun (providing no obstacles like taller
buildings or trees), but without winter sun the vege's don't grow.

but if you aren't into vege's then as another poster said choose your
plants wisely.

having said that then for you up there the southern to eastern aspects
would be the ideal, not only for the garden but for the home as well
to get that suns warmth into the home over winter.

so if those 2 aspects you mention are the only options then i'd
suggest the north east aspect sounds the better.



On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 05:00:19 -0500, deebs
wrote:
snipped
--

len

With peace and brightest of blessings,

"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

North or North-East?
 

On 8 Mar, 17:58, gardenlen wrote:
g'day deebs,

just as a casual observer and one who looks at aspects when buying
homes, for us down under the northern around to eastern aspects are
ideal as they give us good sun (providing no obstacles like taller
buildings or trees), but without winter sun the vege's don't grow.

but if you aren't into vege's then as another poster said choose your
plants wisely.

having said that then for you up there the southern to eastern aspects
would be the ideal, not only for the garden but for the home as well
to get that suns warmth into the home over winter.

so if those 2 aspects you mention are the only options then i'd
suggest the north east aspect sounds the better.

On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 05:00:19 -0500, wrote:

snipped
--

len

With peace and brightest of blessings,

"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

Have you thought to check the soil in both Gardens, often houses on an
end can have the soil more compacted and the builders just spread a
few inches of topsoil over the site.
David Hill

Thanks everyone.

I think we will take the NE facing garden. There are no tall obstructions anywhere so we should be ok.

I think we will deck the end of the garden and have our table/chairs/bbq area there.

Thanks again for your comments.

North or North-East?
 

Sacha wrote:
Careful with decking, if I may butt in - it gets mossy and slippery in
the rain and heaven knows we get enough of that. Weeds and grass can
grow up through it unless concrete is laid first and - shudder - rats
and mice love picking up any food dropped through it or from it.
Personally, I'd consider flagstones with little pockets of earth left
between them for planting low growing things. But all that is very
much a matter of personal taste. Decking isn't always the answer to a
sitting area, though.

I got outvoted with our summer house front, where what you are suggesting
would have been nice, but He wanted decking. So we got decking.

Tbh, it's not that bad. It cleans off nicely with a power hose, and we've
not had any moss growing on it. It did have to get weedkillered at one
point cos the weed blanket under it wasn't doing its job. But now it seems
to be fine. (In fact, if /only/ the grass would grow! The garden looks
worse than Wembley!)

And yes, we did have rats living under it for a while. :-( But that's more
to do with the chickens nearby rather than food scraps under the decking, I
think. (Although I could be wrong)

North or North-East?
 

On 08/03/2010 17:23, Bob Hobden wrote:


"deebs" wrote

We are buying a new-build on a development. There are two houses up for
grabs with 60 foot gardens.

One of the houses has a North facing garden and the other has a
North-East facing garden.

Which would you choose?

PS we are in South London.

Whichever you choose with a 60ft rear garden you will be able to have a
patio/sun trap in the sun, just have to be down the bottom of the garden
instead of near the house. However you must look at how the sun reaches
the garden, how many other buildings, trees, etc shade it. Check it at
different times of the day. If there is a sunny spot down the garden
right now it will be better in the summer when the sun is higher.
Our garden is NNE facing and much shorter than yours, it's not a
problem, you just have to choose the right plants for a bit of shade, or
rather, lack of direct sun. Some of the plants I grow would not like it
any other way.


In a similar situation we find that a trough of alpine saxifrages
(apiculata etc)does very well near our back windows - with practically
no direct sunlight. They burn up anywhere else. OTOH the greenhouse
needs to be halfway down the garden.
Paul

--
CTC Right to Ride Rep. for Richmond upon Thames

We have young children so decking is definitely the bast option for us.

I've always had decking and never had a problem with it being slippery. You've just got to look after it.
It's perfect for us as the kids bounce off it!
Both children have split their heads on conctret/tiles and had to have their heads glued back together so def. a no no for us I'm afraid.