Problem

axislabels (ticks labels or labels) of inset_axes feature can sometimes overlap the outer axes of the main plot when location is set to upper left, lower left. borderpad in inset_axes allows the user to offset the axes from the main axes, but will in both x and y. When I place an inset in the upper left corner, it should not move down, but only to the right to not overlap with the main plot axis labels, and not move into the figure more than it should.

It would be a great feature to have borderpadding in the form of a tuple, to offset the inset axes by only x- or y-padding.

Proposed solution

Allow inset_axes(borderpad=(0.5, 0.5))
This will also require some backpropagation into the upper classes and methods.