After a divorce and a great deal of soul-searching, Lotte has abandoned her successful career as an architect for a degree in garden history, and uprooted her three children to take a job as head gardener to millionaire Brody Keegan at Maddon Park in Oxfordshire.

Brody is as ignorant about gardens as Lotte is knowledgeable, his tastes as loud as hers are quiet. As Lotte locks horns with her boss and his spoilt young wife, she finds herself on an emotional roller coaster. She knows what is right for the garden, but - still raw from divorce, anxious about the children and frightened of entanglement - she is less sure of what is right for her.