When designing landscaping, specific areas of a dwelling should be targeted to receive sunlight in winter (living rooms as a minimum) and shade in summer.
Trees can also be utilised to provide wind breaks and channel or deflect breezes to suit your needs.
Deciduous trees to the north will shade a home in summer and help keep it cool. They can also shade the eastern and western sides of a home. In winter, without leaves, deciduous trees will let in sun to warm the home.
Tall cylindrical-shaped trees in row plantings are ideal for shading low-angle sun on the eastern and western sides of a dwelling.
Consider use of mature trees that do not cast a shadow over solar collectors at any time of the year. A solar collector is any building element or appliance specifically designed to capture or collect the suns rays for the benefit of the occupants e.g. windows, solar hot water collector panels, solar-electricity cells/panels.
If evergreens are planted within the northern quadrant of a dwelling, they should be spaced well away from the dwelling itself so as not to block the winter sun of any dwelling.
Variations in mature heights of different species of trees and shrubs should be taken advantage of for shading walls and windows.
Consider including courtyards sheltered by vegetation (summer only). Vegetation can provide strong shadow over courtyards in summer (e.g. deciduous vine over a pergola) and should contribute significantly to comfort levels within a dwelling.
Tall trees with high, wide canopies and bare trunks (eg. many species of eucalypt) will shade a roof but not walls and windows, if planted near enough to a dwelling such that its walls are not in the canopys shadow. However, care should be taken to ensure they do not grow tall enough to shade solar collectors to the south.
Vines and creepers can provide an insulative effect if planted close to a dwelling. They trap air between the leaves of the vines and the walls or windows. The process of transpiration, by which leaf moisture is converted to vapour, also provides a cooling effect in summer.
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