Love in Bloom: Romances for Plant and Garden Lovers

A wise romance author friend once told me that the best romance novels have two love stories: the one where the main characters fall in love with each other, and the one where the main character learns to love themself a little better. Personal growth is a powerful theme in romance, which is why plants, gardening, and flowers make for lovely themes in romance novels. The metaphors are ripe for the picking!

I love writing and reading about characters getting their hands dirty and learning something new about themselves by embracing the natural world. There’s something magical about watching plants and flowers grow alongside a character on a journey of self-discovery. These five romances (three out now and two coming later this year) are lovely reads for plant and garden lovers, as they feature verdant natural landscapes, farms, gardens, and plant shops that cultivate the perfect romantic vibes.

5 Romances for Plant and Garden Lovers

Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

This magical realism romance combines love and plants with a fantastical touch. Every woman in Sage Flores’ family has a magical gift. She’s been running from her hometown and her own magical ability to identify rare plants since her sister died. After eight years away, she returns home and takes back her old job growing roses, forcing her to work with the man she hasn’t gotten over since high school. With lush greenery, witchy magic, ghosts, and a touching second-chance love story, it’s the first book in a romance trilogy that’s sure to charm you.

Where the Wildflowers Grow by Terah Shelton Harris

While this gorgeous story straddles the line between romance and contemporary fiction, it’s got a love story and floral setting that’s perfect for plant-loving romance readers. When the prison transport van Leigh is riding in crashes, she sees an opportunity to escape her traumatic past and start fresh. She runs from the scene of the accident and finds a wildflower farm in rural Alabama where she’s unlikely to be found. But she finds so much more than a safe place to hide: confidence in her own ability to make things grow, an unexpected found family, and new love with the farm’s gentle and kind owner. It’s a powerful story of surviving tragedy and finding a new way to grow.

Among the Wildflowers by Anita Kelly

After realizing his dream of owning a farm, Emerson is happy to offer it as the venue for his friends’ wedding. But the farm is financially struggling, and it needs a ton of work to be wedding-ready. Emerson meets fisher and aspiring author Luca, who thinks working at a farm might be just what he needs to figure out what he wants in life. As they wrangle the farm’s overgrown but vibrant wildflower fields, Emerson and Luca realize there’s something new blossoming between them. Anita Kelly has a remarkable way of weaving the natural world into their dreamy queer romances, and their latest book is sure to delight plant and garden lovers.

So It Grows by Andie Burke (coming Sept. 22 from St. Martin’s Griffiin)

Have you ever dreamed of quitting your job and starting over by opening a plant shop? That’s the dream Felicity thinks is coming true when she inherits her aunt’s store in a cute Kansas small town. But the handsome and incredibly annoying chef who runs the popular mac and cheese restaurant next door threatens to make Felicity’s dream a living nightmare. When a developer plans to build a towering eyesore of a parking deck on their block, Felicity will have to learn to work with chef Nicholas to stop it. Like all of Andie Burke’s books, this lovely romance is balanced with poignant conversations about mental health, queerness, trauma, and healing. It’s a beautiful story about blooming where you’re planted.

Sunflower Season by Danica Nava (coming Nov. 3 from Berkley)

There’s nothing like the golden radiance of a field of sunflowers. June hopes that magic can fix her after burning out at her job in tech. But when she buys a run-down sunflower farm in her rural Oklahoma hometown, she quickly realizes that it’s not as much of an easy-growing job as she hoped. Luckily, June gets another chance to start fresh when she runs into Noah, her first love who wants to figure out where they went wrong. It’s a luminous story about healing and putting down new roots in a place that nurtures you.

We hope you found some new romances for plant and garden lovers that will make you want to stop and smell the flowers! You might also enjoy these romance books that feel like the first warm day of the year, these seaside romance books to pack in your beach bag, and the best recent romances to read in the heat.