Editing Backyard (section)

==Usage==
Because of weather constraints, it is usual to use a garden more in the summer than in the winter, although some usages are traditional, such as for a bonfire on [[Bonfire Night]], 5 November.  Similarly, [[daytime (astronomy)|daytime]] usage is more common than nighttime.

[[File:View to NW from Bell Harry Tower of Canterbury Cathedral - geograph.org.uk - 139263.jpg|thumb|right|The back garden of the [[archdeacon of Canterbury]] contains a [[mulberry]] which is said to have been planted by [[Erasmus]].]]
Functionally, it may be used for:

* Growing food<ref name=EarthEndures/>
* Playing games
* Relaxing and [[sunbathing]]
* Raising plants
* Housing pets
* Drying clothes
* Making a [[compost heap]]
* Hobbies
* Locating a [[greenhouse]], [[Conservatory (greenhouse)|conservatory]], [[shed]], [[workshop]], [[outhouse]], or [[Garage (residential)|garage]] (if access to  a [[road]] is possible)
* [[Party]]ing
* [[Wildlife refuge]] 
* Safe area for children
* Location of an [[air raid shelter]] such as the [[Anderson shelter]] of World War II<ref name=PoH>{{citation |pages=176–199 |chapter=Gardens and External Space |title=The Place of Home: English domestic environments, 1914-2000 |author=Alison Ravetz, Richard Turkington |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-419-17980-1}}</ref>

In fact, its functional and [[recreational]] use is so varied, that it cannot be easily categorised. Many of the freedoms of the use of the back garden come from the restrictions, social or legal of what are not done in the front.

Usually, clothes are not dried, vegetables are not grown, and sunbathing is not carried out in a front garden. All these can happen in the privacy of the back garden.

Traditionally, people treat a back garden as private to themselves, and not those they are neighbours to. The social etiquette of how one can greet and interact one's neighbours may be complex and defined by many informal social rules.

In some areas, talking to one's neighbours over the back wall (the side wall following the property boundary line) is usual, and is a welcome form of neighbourliness, while in other places it is not.