Unlock your Backyard's Secret Sun Traps and Get your Yard Blooming Before your Neighbors Do

Learning how to grow in sun traps is a skill very much worth mastering. A sun trap in your backyard is a brilliant spot if you know how to harness it and make the most of that warm microclimate. It’s somewhere you can use to your advantage in the cooler spring months to give all kinds of edible and ornamental plants a headstart.

For sure, there are plenty of things you should avoid in a sun trap, but there are heaps of tips and tricks I've learnt that are worth leaning into when learning how to grow in sun traps – I guarantee they’ll reap dividends throughout the rest of the gardening year.

So don’t just reserve that hot spot in your backyard for the sun lounger. Learning how to use sun traps to encourage earlier blooms and stronger plants is one of the most satisfying spring garden ideas I’ve come across, and it’s a trick every gardener can use, whether you’re an expert grower or new to the joys of gardening.

What Exactly is a Sun Trap?

Pretty much every backyard has a sun trap area. Because my yard faces east, mine is at the back of the garden, tucked in a corner of a patio. Wherever yours is, it’s the spot that catches the afternoon sun, when the sun’s heat is at its strongest.

It’s the area you gravitate to in spring with your lunchtime sandwich but avoid in the height of summer as the heat there is just too intense.

That spot will be south or west facing, and it might sit against a brick or stone wall, or any kind of garden fence, as these solid boundaries reflect and intensify the sun’s heat like nothing else.

In short, a backyard sun trap is a sheltered, sunny spot that receives maximum warmth and sunlight, and where the wind is blocked, resulting in a brilliant little microclimate that’s ripe for the performing of all kinds of backyard magic.

Learning how to grow in the hottest corner of your yard is a skill in itself, but keep reading for my tried-and-tested tricks for making the most of that precious sun trap space in spring.

Propagate Seeds Early

Think of your backyard sun trap as a little nursery corner where you can grow on seedlings under protection and get them growing that little bit earlier – and stronger.

The conditions there will be similar to a windowsill inside the house, but more spacious – just as long as you install some kind of cover, in the form of a mini greenhouse, like this one from Lowes, or a coldframe like this neat little wooden model from Amazon to protect them from frost.

Greenhouses don’t have to take up a whole heap of space, and they come in many guises, from full-on glass and aluminum affairs where you can overwinter tender plants and make your first sowings of vegetable crops to space-saving seasonal plastic structures which you can put up and take down in a matter of minutes, then store in the shed when you’re not using them.

Or you can make your own greenhouse structure from all kinds of bits and bobs you might have languishing in the garage or attic.

With an early-spring head start like this, your crops can be around two weeks ahead of your neighbors’. Here we’re talking all kinds of edibles, including tomatoes, beans, lettuces, beets, spring onions and more (pop potted tomatoes, chillies, peppers and eggplant back in your hotspot later in the season when they’re fruiting to speed up the ripening process).

Fast-growing annual flowers like cosmos, petunias, zinnias, sunflowers, lobelia, tobacco plant and pot marigolds are also fantastic candidates for an early start in life.

See the range of cosmos seeds to grow at True Leaf Market

See the range of petunia seeds to plant at Amazon

See the range of zinnia seeds to grow at Walmart

See the range of sunflower seeds to plant at Burpee

See the range of lobelia seeds to grow at True Leaf Market

Harden Off New Plants

A sun trap spot is also the perfect place to harden off any indoor grown seedlings and new bedding plants you’ve bought for pots, which are also the best plants for hanging baskets, as well as vegetable plug plants you’ve bought at a garden centre and potted on.

Early spring is usually too early to plant any of these out into the garden quite yet, depending of course on your location. Most new bedding plants and mini veg have spent their first few weeks in heated greenhouses, being mollycoddled by nursery growers.

Planting them straight out into cold soil with the added risk of spring frost is a mistake that could result in you losing your entire plant shop to frost or, at the very least, sending plants into shock and setting them back weeks.

How to harden off seedlings? Hardening off simply means gradually accustoming these delicate newbies to the outside world. And a sun trap greenhouse or cold frame is the ideal space to do this.

Give them an hour a day for a couple of days, gradually working up to a full day, then a night too. After that, they can safely stay in your sun trap for however long it takes for the soil to warm up and the danger of frost to pass. This is how you know when to plant your vegetables in their final spot.

Create a Potted Garden

A backyard hotspot is the ideal location for pots of spring bulbs that might have been lurking by the side of the house over winter and are now full of buds. In early spring, group them in your sun trap for a few days and watch as those buds swell and begin to open.

Just as they’re bursting into flower, bring your pots back to where you want them: outside the kitchen door perhaps, by the front door or on the outdoor dining table. Somewhere you can enjoy those blooms to the max.

If you’re putting together a pretty spring arrangement using the best front door plants – begin with a large, handsome pot like this tall Kante container from Amazon and you can’t go wrong – it’s worth starting your container off in that sun trap too, where your new plants can bask in the sun and get off to a flying start.

A week or two is enough time to make a difference, then you can pop your pot where you’d originally planned to display it.

If space is limited, a ladder display like this foldable design from Amazon is a brilliant piece of kit, allowing you to embrace vertical layering to cleverly cram in far more pots.

Grow a Fruit Tree

If your sun trap is reliably sheltered from cold northerly winds, you could also use it in a more permanent way, to try growing something a little bit exotic and challenging that might struggle in other parts of your yard.

Think peach, nectarine or apricot trees that need shelter from early spring frosts. Peaches and nectarines (USDA Zones 5-9) flower early, second only to apricot trees, blossoming from the end of March in the UK.

The crucial thing to know about how to grow a peach tree, is that if they get frosted you may lose some of your fruit, but in a south-facing sun trap, fan-trained against a wall, they can thrive.

Apricots (USDA Zones 5-8) are more challenging still, with blossom at the end of February or in early March, so the microclimate of a sun trap is ideal, going a long way to getting your apricot tree to fruit.

If these trees thrive I promise you’ll be rewarded with the most beautiful of spring blossom and, of course, a delicious harvest that will be the envy of all your neighbors.

Shop fruit trees at Nature Hills

How to Care For Your Sun Trap Plants

Of course the very conditions that make a sun trap ideal for certain plants and gardening activities are what can also make them a challenge.

The concentrated, blazing heat of a sunny, sheltered corner means you’ll need to know how to ventilate greenhouses well to combat overheating and humidity, and check plants regularly for fungal diseases, which can quickly take hold in warm, humid environments.

Clever but efficient watering, too, must be a priority. Do this first thing in the morning to minimise water lost to evaporation. Mulch is also important. A layer of gravel around seedlings in smaller pots will keep water in and weeds out, while bark mulch is ideal for larger containers.

You can shop mulching options at Lowes

Follow these simple guidelines for learning how to grow in a sun trap and you could have flowers and vegetables a good few weeks before usual, and healthy ones at that. The spot in your yard that once seemed impossible to grow in can soon become your most useful ally, packed with healthy seedlings and exotic fruit.

It’s all about right plants, right place, and harnessing nature’s own climate variations to create the backyard you’ve always dreamed of.

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