Mary Lennox lives in India with parents that are far too busy with friends and parties to spend much time with her. She is young, sickly, and a nuisance. Mary grows up with her Ayah (an Indian nursemaid) waiting on her hand and foot, becoming spoiled and tyrannical.

After a cholera epidemic passes through, British officers reach the post where the Lennox family lives to find Mary is the only survivor still there. Mary is sent to England to live with her uncle, Mr. Archibald Craven, a hunchbacked recluse - and her only living relative. An accident ten years earlier took the life of his beautiful wife, leaving him lonely and bitter.

When Mary arrives at Misselthwaite Manor she meets Martha, a kindly, down-to-earth servant, and one of twelve children from a neighboring farm across the moor. Martha befriends Mary in spite Mary's thoughtlessness and tells her about a locked garden: "Mr. Craven had it shut when his wife died so sudden. He won't let no one go inside."

From that moment Mary is determined to enter this 'secret' garden. Mary's encounter with the garden - and another inhabitant of the Manor - will change her life, and the lives of others, forever.