I don't get the title

The Constant Gardener
John Le Carre
2001

Maryann did an excellent job of breaking in the mass paperback edition of The Constant Gardener. The spine was broken, the covers a bit wrinkled. Physically, it was a pleasure to read. That's maybe 60 percent of the reason I finished it.

At one point, all these characters' computers are wiped out by viruses (planted by the forces of evil, of course), and they all lament the loss of their e-mail, possibly including unread messages. I am willing to believe that some people were using programs like Lotus and Outlook to download their e-mail automatically. But all of them? Especially because some of these people were dealing with sensitive and irreplaceable information.

Also, there is no "constant gardening." Our protagonist had a garden, and there's intermittent talk of it, and freesia are a plot point. But a better title might be The Former Gardener or Mediocre Thriller where the Main Character Likes Plants.

Or maybe it's a metaphor -- even though his wife's dead, he's a constant gardener of her work. Right.