Lily the Tiller is a nomadic gardener on the permanent lam from a bleak, abusive past. Scouring the lanes of South West England looking for temporary work, she pitches up at Motthoe, a now dilapidated, but once grand, country estate, where Dreamer Harry – Motthoe's reluctant owner via recent inheritance – falls for her with only the slimmest hopes of reciprocation. In Lily's care, a walled garden at Motthoe begins to blossom and the greening magic of this new life touches each of Motthoe's cast of idiosyncratic inhabitants.

But, even in the midst of this community blossoming, dark hints and ill-omens suggest Lily's grim history can be run from no longer.