Which Way Does My Garden Face?
Stand at the back of your house, looking out over the garden: the direction you face is its aspect, so a garden that runs away from a south-facing back wall is a south-facing garden. Find it below with your phone's compass, with the sun or on a compass rose, and see how many hours of direct sun the back wall and the far end of the garden get through the year.
Find your garden's aspect
Stand at the back of the house, looking out over the garden: the direction you face is its aspect. Pick a way to find that direction, then see the sun it gets.
The house sits in the middle and the arrow runs out of its back wall down the garden. Drag the arrow, use the arrow keys, or type it.
- Stand at the back door, looking out over the garden.
- Hold the phone flat, its top edge pointing straight down the garden.
- Press start, wait a few seconds for the number to settle, then press use.
Needs a phone or tablet with a compass, on a secure (https) page. Nothing leaves the phone.
A compass points to magnetic north, which is not quite true north. Where you are, the gap is NOAA's declination calculator (US and the world) or the British Geological Survey's. Put it here and the heading is corrected. The sun method needs no correction.
Stand at the back of the house on a sunny day. When the sun is straight down the garden, or straight behind you over the roof, note the time. The sun's direction at that moment, at your place, is the garden's direction.
Use the clock time on the wall, daylight saving included. Pick the place below first.
What gets in the sun's way
Not sure of the angle? A fence or tree that high, that far away:
- Bearing from true north
- A magnetic compass would read
- The sun then
Hours of direct sun at your place
| Day | The back wall | Back of the garden |
|---|
Clear sky, sun's center above the horizon angle you set. The wall is in sun while the sun is in front of it. The back of the garden is the spot straight out from the middle of the wall at the length you give, and counts the house's own shadow, treating the house as a long wall.
What shade suits it
The sun is high at midday and, in summer, higher still, so the shade that works is overhead: an awning or pergola roof that sticks out from the wall stops the high sun and lets the low winter sun in. The best shade for a south-facing garden goes through the choices, retractable or fixed awnings covers the awning question, and a louvered pergola lets you tilt the roof as the sun moves.
You get the sun from the south side of the sky and a low sun from one side too: the south-east gets it in the morning, the south-west in the afternoon, which is the hot end of the day. Overhead shade handles the midday sun; for the low side sun you also want something that comes down: a side drop on an awning or a sail set at an angle. Shade for a south-facing garden applies here too, and shade sail, awning or pergola compares the three.
A sail needs fixing points at the right height: how to install a shade sail.
A garden facing east or west has half a day of sun, and it comes in low, so a roof over the patio does less than something at the side. A front-drop awning, a sail hung at an angle or a patio umbrella that tilts can reach the low sun; types of awnings and what they cost lists the kinds, and how to choose a patio umbrella the umbrellas. West-facing windows take the afternoon heat, which shading windows to cut cooling costs covers.
Facing away from the sun, the house shades a good part of this garden, so you may want sun more than shade. Where a spot does get too much, it is probably the far end in summer or the evening: a small sail or an umbrella there is enough. How the sun moves across your garden explains why the shade falls where it does, and in a hot climate shade for hot climates applies whichever way you face.
New to this? How the sun moves across your garden is the place to start.
What aspect means
This tool uses one convention: the aspect is the direction you face standing at the back of the house and looking out into the garden, which is the way the back wall faces. A south-facing garden is one you look south into from the back door, so the house is at its north end and the garden lies on the sunny side of it. If you have a front garden too, treat it separately and stand at the front door. Where a plot is odd, a courtyard or a garden on the side, use the wall you want to know about.
Three ways to find the direction
The compass rose is for when you already know, from a map, a plan or a deed. Drag the arrow, use the arrow keys, or type the degrees from north (north is 0°, east 90°, south 180°, west 270°).
A phone compass reads magnetic north, and magnetic north is not true north. The gap is the magnetic declination, and it is positive when magnetic north lies east of true north and negative when it lies west, by convention. It differs from place to place and changes slowly with the years, so look yours up: NOAA's declination calculator works anywhere in the world, and the British Geological Survey has one too. Enter it in the box and the tool turns the reading into a true bearing. Hold the phone flat with its top edge pointing straight down the garden, away from steel, speakers and magnets, wait for the number to settle, and check it against the sun method if the two disagree.
The phone's browser has to allow it. A page can read the compass only on a secure (https) connection, and where the sensor gives an absolute bearing, which is the earth-referenced orientation MDN describes. On iPhones the browser asks first, through a permission request, and you must say yes. A laptop usually has no compass at all, which is what the next method is for.
The sun needs no declination, because the sun's bearing is a true one. Stand at the back of the house on a day with sun and wait until it is straight down the garden (or turn around and wait until it is straight behind you, over the roof). Note the clock time as the wall clock shows it, daylight saving included, and enter it with the date and the place. The tool works out where the sun stands at that moment from NOAA's solar position equations, which NOAA states are theoretically accurate to within a minute for sunrise and sunset between 72° north and south, and that bearing is your garden's. A low sun is easier to judge by eye than a high one.
Two examples
In London, at 3:30 pm British Summer Time on 21 June, you look down the garden and the sun is straight in front of you. The sun is then at a bearing of 239°, 50° above the horizon, so the garden faces south-west (239°).
In New York, at 4:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time on 20 March, the sun is straight behind you, over the roof. It is then at 236°, so the garden runs the other way: 236° − 180° = 56°, north-east.
How many hours of sun does each aspect get?
The tables are the hours of direct sun on the back wall, worked out by this tool for clear sky and nothing in the way, on the three days that bracket the year. The dates are the ones the US Naval Observatory gives for 2026: the December solstice on 21 December, the March equinox on 20 March and the June solstice on 21 June. The September equinox, on 23 September, is the March day's twin. A wall is in sun while the sun is above the horizon and in front of it.
| Faces | 21 Dec | 20 Mar | 21 Jun |
|---|---|---|---|
| South (180°) | 7.8 | 12 | 9.3 |
| South-east (135°) | 7.2 | 8.6 | 10 |
| South-west (225°) | 7.2 | 8.6 | 10 |
| East (90°) | 3.9 | 6 | 8.3 |
| West (270°) | 3.9 | 6.1 | 8.3 |
| North-east (45°) | 0.5 | 3.5 | 6.6 |
| North-west (315°) | 0.5 | 3.5 | 6.6 |
| North (0°) | 0 | 0 | 7.3 |
| Faces | 21 Dec | 20 Mar | 21 Jun |
|---|---|---|---|
| South (180°) | 9.2 | 12 | 8 |
| South-east (135°) | 7.9 | 8.2 | 8.7 |
| South-west (225°) | 7.9 | 8.3 | 8.7 |
| East (90°) | 4.6 | 6 | 7.5 |
| West (270°) | 4.6 | 6.1 | 7.5 |
| North-east (45°) | 1.3 | 3.8 | 6.4 |
| North-west (315°) | 1.3 | 3.9 | 6.4 |
| North (0°) | 0 | 0 | 7.1 |
Three things stand out. A south wall gets the most sun in winter and a full 12 hours at the equinox, but less in June than in March: in midsummer the sun rises and sets north of east and west, behind a south wall for the first and last hours of the day. In London on 21 June the sun rises at about 4:43 am at a bearing of 49° and sets at about 9:22 pm, and the same sun that is behind the south wall at dawn is in front of a north wall, which is why a north wall has 7.3 hours in June and none at all in December and March. And an east or west wall gets half the sun of a south one at the equinox, 6 hours, whatever the latitude.
The sun's height matters as much as its direction. At London's noon the sun stands 15° above the horizon on 21 December and 62° on 21 June (90° minus the latitude, plus or minus the sun's 23.4° declination), against 26° and 73° in New York. The low winter sun slides under an awning's edge; the high summer sun does not, which is the point of the next section.
The back of the garden
The wall is easy: it is in sun whenever the sun is in front of it. The far end of the garden is harder, because the house can stand between it and the sun. The tool takes the spot straight out from the middle of the back wall, at the garden length you enter, and treats the house as a long wall of the height you give. With the sun behind the house, a wall of height H throws its shadow a distance H ÷ tan(altitude) from its foot, shortened by the cosine of the angle between the sun and straight behind the house when the sun is off to one side. A 16 ft (4.9 m) house with the sun 30° up straight behind it shades the ground out to 16 ÷ tan 30° = 27.7 ft (8.4 m). In that one line of sight, a garden longer than that has sun at its far end; a shorter one is shaded to the fence. With the sun in front of the wall, the house shades none of the garden and only fences, trees and neighbors count.
For those, enter the angle above the horizon below which the sun is blocked. If you know how tall a fence or tree is and how far away, the tool works the angle: a 2 m (6 ft 7 in) fence 5 m (16 ft 5 in) away blocks the sun below atan(2 ÷ 5) = 21.8°. The angle is the same all round, which is a simplification: one tall tree in the south-west blocks the afternoon sun but not the morning's. Use the angle of whatever is in the direction of the sun you care about.
A worked example: a west-facing garden in London on 21 June, a house 16 ft (4.9 m) high and a garden 50 ft (15.2 m) long. With nothing in the way the wall is in sun from 1:05 pm to 9:20 pm (8.3 hours) and the far end from 6:55 am to 9:20 pm (14.4 hours). Add a line of trees that blocks the sun below 22° and the wall's sun falls to 5.6 hours, ending at 6:35 pm, and the far end's to 11.2 hours.
What shade suits each aspect
The rule of thumb for fixed shade is that a high sun is beaten from above and a low sun from the side. Passive solar designers shade south-facing glass in summer with an overhang sized for the latitude, because the summer noon sun is high and the winter sun low, and list a lack of shading in the hot season, "especially on the West wall", among the common faults. The tool's advice follows the same logic. A south-facing garden wants overhead shade: the best shade for a south-facing garden lists the choices, and an awning or louvered roof that tilts does it well (retractable or fixed awnings, the louvered pergola guide). East and west gardens get low sun that goes under a roof, so side drops, angled sails and tilting umbrellas do the work (types of awnings and what they cost, how to install a shade sail, how to choose a patio umbrella). Between the two, shade sail, awning or pergola sets the three side by side.
A north-facing garden is a different question: the house shades it and the sun that arrives does so early or late and low, so many owners want more sun, not less. Where you do want shade in a hot climate, shade for hot climates applies whichever way you face. West-facing windows take the afternoon heat into the house, which shading windows to cut cooling costs covers. For the whole picture of why the shade moves, read how the sun moves across your garden.
What the tool leaves out
Clouds: these are hours with a clear sky, and a real day has fewer. Anything under ten minutes of sun is dropped as the sun grazing the wall's edge at sunrise or sunset. The solstice and equinox are single days, and the dates move by a day from year to year. The tool uses the sun's center, corrected for the bending of its light by the air as NOAA does, and takes the day as the place's own clock day, daylight saving included. Treating the house as a long wall overstates its shade when the house is narrow and the sun is off to one side. And the horizon angle is one number for all directions. It is a good first answer to which way you face and how much sun that means; for the exact shadow of a particular roof or tree through a day, use a planner that draws it.
Sources: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory, solar calculator details (the equations and their accuracy); US Naval Observatory, seasons for 2026; NOAA NCEI declination calculator; British Geological Survey magnetic calculator; magnetic declination and passive solar building design (Wikipedia); MDN on absolute orientation and the permission request; NIST Handbook 44, Appendix C (1 foot = 0.3048 meter exactly). The hours-of-sun figures and worked examples are this tool's own calculations from those equations.