Introduction

For thousands of years, in every corner of the world, people have been gardening – including in war and in prisons. Helena Merriman explores the peculiar magic of garden and asks why people take so much pleasure in it.

She talks to the designer of 58 of China’s public gardens, finds out what swimming mice reveal about the secret properties of soil and hears about the extraordinary lengths one man went to create a garden in Guantanamo Bay.

(Image of a Classical Chinese Garden. Credit: Shutterstock)