Aspects of a garden

The aspect of a garden relates to how the sun moves the shade around your garden and affects every plant or tree that you place in it. In Ireland it is preferred to have a south facing garden as this is where the sun spends most of it’s time warming the soil and allowing a large range of plants to be grown.

In mid - summer the sun sits high in the sky so it reduces the amount of shade and allows even the normally dark corners to come alive with colour.

In mid - winter sunlight flows in from a low angle casting long shadow and reducing the amount of light making the ground cooler.

With a brand new site look around beyond the rubble and start to plan your new garden. Look around at the view and see what you can add and where, by the way that the sun and shade are placed. This is the ideal time to plan a seating area in a large garden or to look at ways to make the area look larger by bringing the outside in on a smaller one.

Being a self builder gives you more choice about where you place your house on the new land so think about making the most used area south facing so that your garden and patio can be used for more of the year and not just for a few days in Summer.