The Last Garden in England

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses child loss and abuse.

Emma Lovell is tasked with the project of restoring the garden rooms at Highbury House to their former glory, but, in the process, she uncovers connections to the past that reach beyond the horticultural. Emma and the others in the present day, including Sydney Wilcox and Henry Jones, discover that the historical value of the gardens corresponds to their potential for bringing people together, sometimes even creating new iterations of family. The act of restoration, honoring the original work of a gardening pioneer, not only acknowledges the importance of preserving cultural history but also the significance of recovering family chronicles.

Emma eagerly accepts the challenge of renovating the overgrown, and somewhat mysterious, garden rooms. She “loved nothing more than sinking her spade into a restoration” (8), rather than creating a garden specifically for misguided clients—who, more often than not, make requests that cannot be honored (seeding tropical plants in a Scottish climate, for example). Indeed, she thinks of her role at Highbury House in even loftier terms: “She could rewind the clock. Make things right again” (8). Emma will not merely renovate these beautiful gardens, but she will act as their savior, righting the wrongs of history.