What's Outside Your Window

I thought I'd have a go at the What's Outside My Window challenge, with thanks to BlipCommunity for the useful tips on how to take photographs through glass.

I can't boast a spectacular view, but I do have part of the old orchard wall and one of the orchard trees from the nineteenth century Heatherlea Estate.  Because some of the surrounding towns are very old, people assume that Bournemouth is too.  But in the early eighteenth century it was heathland, mainly used by smugglers.  An officer tracking smugglers decided, for reasons best known to himself, that he wanted to build a house and live on the heath.  And that was the beginning of Bournemouth.  It became fashionable and the gentry had their seaside estates in this area.  The estates were largely broken up in the early twentieth century.

The lawn looks terrible.  I can't remember when we last had any decent rain.  But I won't use a sprinkler.  That's just wasting water for the sake of appearances.

Do any of you more experienced photographers know how to expose correctly for the wall taken in evening light without ending up with what is I believe known as a shot-through sky?