[1][2] The film stars Gennie James, Barret Oliver, Jadrien Steele, Billie Whitelaw, Michael Hordern, and Sir Derek Jacobi.

[4] The story is told as a flashback of the twenty-year-old Mary Lennox (Irina Brook) returning to Misselthwaite Manor after World War I, during which she worked as a nurse in a hospital.

The main story begins in colonial India with the young, neglected, and selfish Mary Lennox (Gennie James) waking in the night to find her servants not answering and her parents having a late dinner party.

The dinner guests discuss a cholera epidemic that is infesting the region, but Mary's vain shallow mother cares only about attending another party.

She is discovered by English officers and is soon sent to live with a school friend of her late father's named Mr. Archibald Craven (Derek Jacobi), even though the two of them have met twice.

While adjusting to life in England, Mary meets the maid Martha Sowerby (Cassie Stuart) who tells her the story of a secret walled garden that was locked up, with the key thrown away, after the late Mrs. Lilias Craven died there.

The servants insist that the sound is the wind, but one night Mary goes exploring and discovers Mr. Craven's bed-bound son Colin (Jadrien Steele), who weeps incessantly because he is convinced he is going to die.