Safe haven or symbol of injustice? What our gardens tell us about the world we live in

From manicured, exclusive retreats built on slave money to common ground in which to seed utopian dreams, gardens occupy a fertile space in our lives and imaginations

I have a dream sometimes. I dream I’m in a house, and discover a door I didn’t know was there. It opens into an unexpected garden, and for a weightless moment I find myself inhabiting new territory, flush with potential. Maybe there are steps down to a pond, or a statue surrounded by fallen leaves. It is never tidy, always beguilingly overgrown. What might grow here, what rare peonies, irises, roses will I find? I wake with the sense that a too-tight joint has loosened, and that everything runs fluent with new life.

For most of the years that I have had this dream, I didn’t have a garden of my own. I rented until I was 40, and only rarely in flats with outdoor space. The first of these temporary gardens was in Brighton. I planted calendula there, which according to the 16th-century herbalist Gerard would “strengthen and comfort the heart very much”. I was training to be a herbalist and my head was full of plants, an entanglement of natural forms.