First steps to designing your garden: Tracking the Sun’s path

The Sun is the most important element of the garden. Without the sun, we have nothing! So, it’s important that we understand how the Sun moves across the sky. Knowing the Sun’s relative position throughout the year, will help us located the sunny and shady parts of your garden. This simple analysis can save you a lot of time, money, and energy in the future. You don’t want to be planting a shade loving plant in the full Sun!

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Sun is always coming from a southward angle. And although the angle of the Sun will shift throughout the year, it will always be coming from the South. To best understand this, let’s look at the two extremes of where the Sun is in the sky.

The Summer Solstice is when the Sun is at its highest angle in the sky.

The Winter Solstice is when the Sun is at its lowest angle in the sky.

Summer Solstice: high noon

Above is a sectional view, or side view, of the Sun during the Summer Solstice. At high noon, the Sun will be casting shadows almost directly downward and slightly to the north. It’s very subtle this time of year, but is still casting the shadow north.

* Keep in mind this angle will change based on where you are on the planet. This is just an example of the latitude and longitude of West Palm Beach, FL.

Winter Solstice: high noon

Above is a sectional view of the sun during the Winter Solstice. At high noon, the Sun will be casting a shadows at a 45° degree angle. And not so subtly, the shadows will be casted towards the north still.

So, what we can gather from this simple observation, is that the shade will always be cast to the north! We can plan according based on what we know about these angles! With great accuracy, we can locate exactly where the shade will fall throughout the year. This is very helpful knowing these two extremes in the year! You can get super technical and measure the height of trees and structures, but our eyes are pretty good. We can simply look at structures or trees and see where the shadows will fall. Trust your eye!

Now, let’s take a look at where the Sun rises and sets throughout the year.

Summer Solstice: sunrise, sunset

Above is a plan view, or view from above, of where the Sun rises and sets during the Summer Solstice. That same 89° degree angle at high noon applies the sunrise and sunset and the position of the Sun the either day!

In other words, if you were standing looking directly south, you’d see the Sun rise almost exactly East during sunrise and almost exactly West on sunset.

Winter Solstice: sunrise, sunset

Same thing here! Now, that 45° degree angle applies during the Winter Solstice. If you were standing directly south at the time of the sunrise, you’d see the Sun rising exactly Southeast and setting exactly Southwest on the horizon.

Conclusion

The first thing that you want to do is find South. Once, you’ve established where South is, take some time to survey your garden and take note of where the Sun is coming from throughout the year. The Solstices give you the two extremes: the highest and lowest the Sun is in the sky. And if you know the highest and lowest points, then you trace out all others paths in between. Little by little day by day, the Sun creeps along its path between the Summer and Winter Solstice.

Tracking the Sun’s place takes some practice, but will become second nature as you move through the seasons and years observing its path.