How much sun does your garden actually get?
Not a guess from which way the garden faces — the real answer, for your house, your fences and your neighbour's trees, at any hour of any day of the year.
Free. No sign-up. Works anywhere in the world.
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Aspect is only half the story
Gardening advice tends to stop at which way your garden faces. That rule is real — a north-facing garden gets the most sun in Australia and the southern hemisphere, a south-facing one in Europe and North America — but it describes an empty paddock.
Almost no garden is an empty paddock. A two-storey neighbour on the sunny side will take more light than aspect ever gave you. A 1.8 metre colourbond fence can put a whole bed into winter shade. A single established tree can shade half a back garden through an entire afternoon.
The only way to know is to look at your actual garden, with the actual things around it, at the time of year you care about. That is what this tool does.
Winter is the test, not summer. The sun sits far lower in the sky in winter, so shadows stretch roughly three times longer. A bed that bakes in January can sit in shade all day in July. If you are planting something that has to survive the whole year, check it at the winter solstice first.
How it works
Type in your address and the planner loads an aerial photograph of your property. You trace what is actually there, then scrub through the day and the year and watch the shadows move.
- Find your place Enter your address. An aerial photo of your property loads underneath, down to about 12 centimetres per pixel in many areas — sharp enough to see individual garden beds.
- Trace what is there Click around your roof to draw your house, then your neighbours'. Add fences by clicking along the line, and drop a tree with a single click. Set the height of each one.
- Watch the shadows move Drag the time slider to move through the day, and the year slider to jump between the solstices. Every shadow is calculated from the real position of the sun for your latitude.
What the labels actually mean
Plant labels talk about full sun and part shade without saying how many hours that is. Here is the usual scale, and what tends to work in each band.
| Label | Direct sun per day | Typically suits |
|---|---|---|
| Full sun | 6 hours or more | Tomatoes, capsicum, chillies, eggplant, basil, rosemary, lavender, roses, most fruit trees |
| Part sun / part shade | 4 to 6 hours | Lettuce, rocket, spinach, silverbeet, coriander, peas, strawberries, many herbs |
| Full shade | Under 4 hours, or dappled light | Mint, parsley, ferns, hostas, hellebores, clivia |
Direct sun is what counts — sunlight actually landing on the leaves. A bright spot in open shade is not the same thing.
A note on morning versus afternoon sun
Six hours of morning sun is gentler than six hours of afternoon sun. In hot climates, beds that get sun until about midday and shade afterwards often grow leafy crops better than beds in sun all day, which scorch. The planner shows you which you have, not just how many hours.
Common questions
How many hours of sun counts as full sun?
Six or more hours of direct sunlight a day. Part sun or part shade is roughly four to six hours, and under about four hours is full shade. What matters is direct sun landing on the plant, not general daylight.
Which way should a garden face?
In the southern hemisphere, north-facing gets the most sun. In the northern hemisphere, south-facing. But that rule describes an open site — a fence, a tree or a neighbour's house very often matters more than which way the garden points.
Will a fence shade my vegetable beds?
It depends entirely on the season. A standard 1.8 metre fence casts a shadow about 1.5 metres long at midday in midsummer, but around 3.5 metres at midwinter when the sun sits far lower. A bed close to the shaded side of a fence can be fine all summer and get no direct sun at all in winter.
Does a deciduous tree still count?
Less than you would think in winter, and more than you would think in summer. A bare deciduous canopy still cuts a noticeable amount of light, but nothing like a full one. The planner models canopies as solid, so it shows you the shadiest case — useful for deciding whether a spot works at its worst.
Do I need to know my neighbour's exact house height?
An estimate is enough to be useful. A single-storey house is roughly three metres to the gutters, or four and a half to five and a half if it sits high off the ground. A two-storey house is usually six to seven. You can set each building's height individually and see how much the answer moves.
See your own garden
Takes a couple of minutes to trace, and answers a question you would otherwise be guessing at for a whole season.
Open the sun planner