Was it the whiff of compost? Or pique at wounding comments about "felling and disfiguring" garden trees?
Either way, a traditional British fallout between neighbours has closed the TV gardener Carol Klein's nursery and pushed her celebrated muddle of cottage plants into temporary retirement.
The abrupt interruption to a prospering career follows acrimony between Klein, 65, and retired businessman Len Tanner, 70, who moved in next door with his wife Zara last year. The two households have proved to have fatally different approaches to gardening – Klein exuberantly letting things rip while the Tanners want a tidy view.
The couple have refused to renew Klein's lease on the plot of prime Devon soil beside her cottage at Chittlehamholt near Umberleigh, where she has raised unusual herbaceous perennials for 30 years. The move has ended her business, Glebe Cottage Plants, which took orders from all over the UK and was instrumental in her rise to TV fame.
Bounding about in her cottage garden, in spite of two hip joint operations, Klein won a devoted following on BBC TV's Gardeners' World while winning six gold medals at Chelsea flower show. But her enthusiasm and expertise needed a third partner – prime compost – and it is this which got up Len Tanner's nose.
After Klein issued a statement claiming the row followed her tree comments, Tanner said: "That's not true. I've got all her rubbish in my backyard. From my door to the compost is about 20 to 25 yards, and the heap's also above our courtyard because we're on the side of a hill.
"She's also got a potting shed and if it was that bit we saw, it wouldn't be so bad. Up by her own house, there's nothing."
Klein organised a team of friends to dismantle the nursery at the weekend, shifting barrowloads of soil and railway sleepers to her cottage garden which has also closed as a result. Planned open days for the National Gardens Scheme have been cancelled until 2012, although Klein hopes to bounce back, as she did in 2008 when she lost out to Toby Buckland as lead presenter of Gardeners' World after Monty Don withdrew because of ill health.
Klein said: "I am going to take something which, on the face of it, is quite negative and turn it positive," , announcing her hopes of showing the restoration of the garden on a new BBC TV programme. "I will use it as an opportunity to grow lots of specialist plants. It will give me a lot of freedom."
Viewers may include the Tanners, which could just possibly lead to reconciliation. Len said: "My wife is a keen gardener and watches Gardeners' World and thought it would be nice to have Carol Klein as a neighbour. Had she kept her nursery in a better state and I didn't have all her compost outside my back door maybe things might have been different."