Snow storm in Cape Breton today & I'm spending my time enjoying my seed catalogue. Question: Are both the east sun exposure & the west sun exposure considered partial sun (or partial shade)? Is it reasonable to think that the same plant will thrive either in morning sun or the afternoon sun? Full sun is 6 hour or more of sun/day. What is partial sun? Many thanks - Donna
East sun will not be as intense as west sun before setting. Ron said it - West is HOT and should be considered full sun.
But keep in mind that's relative in CB, as the place is foggy half the time, has a short growing season (relative to even the mainland) and 'hot' would only apply to a few weeks in summer.
A few weeks, or even a few days, of hot full sun is enough to fry many plants. Unless one were willing to manually shade a plant on those sunny days, I wouldn't chance putting a part shade plant in a westerly exposure. Also, remember that fog can really intensify the sun's rays. Ever get a bad sun burn on a really foggy day? I have.
It doesn't intensify the sun's rays, it diminishes them somewhat. The problem for people is that the fog keeps you cool even when the UV light is causing damage to the skin, so you don't notice it until too late (whereas on a sunny day, you'd expect the risk, and therefore take more precautions to avoid it). This doesn't apply to plants, only to people.
Full sun - 6 hours or more Part sun - 4 to 6 hours Part shade - 2 to 4 hours Shade - 2 hours or less of sun. As already said, the afternoon sun is much hotter and should be considered full sun if the timing is from 2pm to 6pm. Temps are usually highest around 4pm. Newt
Thanks so much for all the information - I have a much better understanding of sun exposure now. Just for the record - Cape Breton is not foggy half of the time.
Here's a pdf file that outlines the Nova Scotia climate, and a section regarding fog as well as other climate characteristics. http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mnh/nature/nhns/t5/t5-2.pdf Cheers, LPN.
Thanks LPN, for the interesting article. A friend just sent me this CBC article from 2005. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/08/24/weather_winners_2005_08_24.html Using 30 years of data, it was calculated that Nova Scotia is the foggiest province with 81 days of fog per year. So....Cape Breton may be foggy 22 percent of the time!
Do you have a bug screen installed on your window? If you have, add one more layer of netting, and you will get close to part shade on a West facing window in full sun. That's what I do for my Phalaenopsis orchids.
donnao: Not addressed by the folks replying is the 'why' of morning or afternoon sun. Morning sun gets the 'juices' flowing and the sugars processing with the rest of the day in which they can be used by the plant for growth... Afternoon sun gets them started ,too, but then it gets dark and all work stops. In general, it would seem to me that of two initially identical plants, in a controlled light situation, the one receiving morning sun would be larger, healthier, etc., than the one receiving only afternoon sun. Perhaps Daniel has a more learned input than my supposition.
