Maggie is recovering from a stroke in her overgrown and neglected garden in wealthy Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tristan, a landscape architect, is rebuilding the garden next door for the new homeowners. He spies Maggie through a crack in the stone wall between the two properties, and is intrigued by her beauty and her strong will as she tries to learn how to speak and walk again.

The affair between Tristan and Maggie rejuvenates both of them, and Maggie's neglected garden thrives. Night Gardening is a story about the healing power of love, but it's also a romantic tale about passion blooming in life's later years.