what is partial shade??

Basic question I know but have i got it right? My garden faces NW and the left hand side gets much less sun than the rest. The bit immediately behind the shed hardly gets any direct sunlight but I can cope with that bit. Another part of the boder gets direct sunlight but only fleetingly say a couple of hours in total. I cant remember at what time of the day this is at the mo. I am assuming I can class this as partial shade?

 

I have seen a definition of full sun - something like 5 or more hours a day - I do not remember exactly. I would say 2 hours would be part shade - but quite reasonable. I have one spot between the garage and shadow of the house that literally only gets about 10 minutes sun a day. Stuff still grows there quite happily.

 

Partial shade is a bit of a misnomer as there are two types.

You can have a dappled leafy shade (where you can still see small patches of sunlight on the ground) for most of the day. The typical situation would be woodland margin with plenty of light but cool even temperature. I think this is what most nurseries would regard as partial shade.

You can also get direct baking sunlight for a limited period during the day (say 3 hours max in summer. Full sun with eclipsing hard shadows from buildings is more problematic as the conditions can vary widely during the day and throughout the year