Considering the Climate in Regards to Solar Landscaping
The United States and Canada can be divided into four climatic regions: Cool, temperate, hot-arid, and hot-humid. Your homes best solar landscape strategy depends on which region you live in. That means what you do to enhance solar efficiency for a home in Atlanta (hot-humid) is different from what you would do in Minneapolis (cool) or San Diego (temperate). Lets take a look at recommendations for each climate.
For a cool climate:
- Use dense windbreaks to protect the home from cold winter winds.
- Allow the winter sun to reach south facing windows.
- Shade south and west windows and walls from the direct summer sun, if summer overheating is a problem.
For a temerate climate:
- Maximize warming effects of the sun in the winter.
- Maximize shade during the summer.
- Deflect winter winds away from buildings.
- Funnel summer breezes toward the home.
For a hot-arid climate:
- Provide shade to cool roofs, walls, and windows.
- Allow summer winds to access naturally cooled homes.
- Block or deflect winds away from air-conditioned homes.
For a hot-humid climate:
- Channel summer breezes toward the home.
- Maximize summer shade with trees that still allow penetration of low angle winter sun.
- Avoid locating planting beds close to the home if they require frequent watering.
In addition, there is the climate immediately surrounding your home, its microclimate. If your home is located on a sunny southern slope, it may have a warm microclimate, even if you live in a cool region. Or, even thought oyu live in a hot-humid region, your home may be situated in a comfortable microclimate because of abundant shade and dry breezes. Nearby bodies of water may increase your site’s humidity or decrease its air temperature.
Your home’s microclimate may be more sunny, shady, windy, calm, rainy, snowy, moist or dry than average local conditions. These factors all help determin what plants may or may not grow in your microclimate.
