Sunday 15 June 2014

Light & Shade ...

Good Morning!
Today's post is a quick way to help you choose which plants go where in the garden. As you know plants can be very particular about where they do and don't like to go e.g. full sun, part shade, full shade ...

The best way to determine which part of your garden is best for each particular plant is to watch where the sun lands at certain times of the day. That way you can see where gets the most light and shade. You can do this by taking photo's at certain intervals like I have or simply sit back on a comfy chair and watch the day go by around you!

9am
As you can see the garden is pretty much covered in shade except for the far end where the GH is.

11am 
The light has improved but as you can see the sun has only reached the box ball where the lawn begins so far. Although the border near the shed on the left receives a fair bit of sun.

1pm
The garden is now covered in full sunlight with slight shade under the neighbour's tree in the left border.

4pm
Shade has now crept fully in on the left side border.

7pm
Just like in the morning the garden is pretty much covered in shade once again apart from where the GH is.

By doing this it has helped me understand about where certain things will thrive better. As you can tell my garden gets quite a lot of shade in the left border so that has a few shade tolerant plants, such as Hellebores & Astrantia's planted in it. It has also helped me spot that the far end of the garden gets a lot of sun which is great for my Tomatoes in the GH and sun loving plants!

I hope this little tip has encouraged you to try this yourselves and who knows it may even help you figure out your planting schemes!
HAPPY GROWING!
XXX

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