East-facing garden: morning sun, and when it leaves

An east-facing garden gets the sun from sunrise and loses it after midday, once the sun swings round behind the house. Right by the back door that happens at solar noon. Further down the garden it happens later, and in midsummer the far end of a long garden can keep the sun until early evening.

Opens Pontcanna Street, Cardiff, at 9 am in mid-May. The street runs north to south, so houses on its east side have east-facing gardens.

Why the sun leaves when it does

The back wall of the house faces east, so it's lit for as long as the sun is anywhere in the eastern half of the sky. That ends when the sun crosses due south at solar noon: 13:15 BST in Cardiff in late June, 12:21 GMT at the March equinox and 12:12 GMT in late December.

After that the house starts to cast a shadow into the garden. It grows slowly at first, because the sun is still high and only just west of south, then faster as the sun drops and swings west. A patch of lawn 10 m from the house stays in sun for hours after the patio has gone into shade.

When the sun leaves each part of the garden

Times for Cardiff, treating a two-storey terrace as a long 8 m wall with nothing else around. Calculated in 10-minute steps with SunCalc, the formulas the map uses, with the garden times rounded to the nearest 10 minutes.

The bottom row is the useful one for planting. Halfway down a typical town garden gets 8.5 hours at the equinox, 7.2 hours in late October and about 5 hours at midwinter. By the usual six-hour test, that spot counts as full sun for most of the year.

How the mornings change through the year

In June the Cardiff sun rises at a bearing of 49°, well north of east, and lights the garden from about five in the morning. Long before most people are up, the garden has had several hours of sun. By the March equinox it rises due east at 06:17, and in December it comes up in the south-east, at 129°, after eight.

That December sunrise is low and off to the side, so a neighbour's extension or a tall fence on the southern boundary can block much of the morning sun. It's the time of year when the shape of the plot matters most.

What morning sun is good for

The obvious one is breakfast. A table by the back door gets sun with your morning coffee from spring to autumn, then goes into shade around lunchtime. In a heatwave that shade is welcome: the garden cools down before the hottest part of the day.

The less obvious one is frost. After a cold night, early sun thaws frozen flowers and buds quickly, and that can damage them. The RHS notes that camellia and magnolia flowers are particularly prone, and its camellia guide advises planting away from early morning sun. An east-facing border is exactly that spot, so put early-flowering shrubs on a different side of the garden.

Does it change in the southern hemisphere?

Not much. East and west gardens behave about the same either side of the equator: sun in the morning, shade after solar noon. The difference is that south of the equator the sun passes through the north at midday, so it's north and south gardens that swap roles. See the north-facing garden guide for that side of it.

Check your own garden

Search your address, pick a date and drag the time slider through the afternoon to watch the house's shadow creep down the garden. For a single number, switch to Sun hours and tap or hover the spot you care about. If you'd rather have the evenings, compare it with a west-facing garden.