First Post New Garden New Gardener !

[iwearahalo2]

Hi There ,

I am in the process of buying a house in Liverpool , UK and the house is SSE Facing . The house is new so obviously will the garden , the question I wanted to ask was exactly how much sun shall I get (I can not get into the property yet as its still being built) ? When will the sun approx go and the shade come in , its a two storey house and the dimensions of the garden are a bit strange , they are 31ft in length ,

33ft width but the left of the garden its starts at 10ft width then up to 20ft until its gets to 31ft (so two diagonal sections as such until it reaches the far side of the garden at 31ft)!

In the 10ft section I wish to put some decking in so I shall be left with 31L , 25W very approx .

What plants would you recommend to a complete novice , I would like some herbs and spices if possible , would top soil be an issue as its a new house ?

I am very sorry for the vagueness of this question but I can not get into the house until 10sept and I need to get things ordered before then .

Many Thanks for your patience .

[David Hare-Scott]

There is a small freeware application called Ephemeris by Johnothan Sachs. You should be able to download it from big shareware download sites. Once you put in the details of your location it will compute the time and place of the rising and setting of sun for any day of the year plus the position of the sun for any time of day. It will also create tables that you can export, print, graph etc.

Armed with this, a protractor and a compass you can work out how much sun any part of the garden will get and when it is in shadow.

There are some web sites that do similar calculations online and possibly other applications but this one is a excellent and free!.

its a two storey house and

If you have plans consider making a simple scale model (say) out of cardboard until such time as you can get into the property. This will allow you to plot out shadow boundaries etc.

Topsoil is very likely to be an issue. As is the builder leaving piles of concrete, plaster, takeaway food containers and turned over rocks and subsoil all over the place. Assume that you are starting with nothing useful and you can only be pleasantly amazed if you don't.

Get some gardening design books (library?)and think long and hard before you pick up your spade or order any soil. Rushing into this without proper planning will give you many years to repent. As landscaping books tend to generalise about plants, or worse list plants that don't suit your climate, join the local garden club and find out what does well in your area.

David

[Billy]

I presume you could go to a local library, and look at the local newspapers for the equinoxes (March 20, and 20 September), and the Summer Solstice (June 20, you may as well look at Dec. 20 also, while you're there). Usually, the weather section will also give sunrise, and sunset.