Plant Lady

In a quiet neighbourhood of Dosan, South Korea, Yoohee runs a carefully arranged plant shop. Petunias, marigolds and other plants fill the space that she has built as a refuge after a traumatic period in her life. During the day she advises customers on soil, watering and growth, presenting an orderly routine shaped by close attention to living things.

Women begin to visit Yoohee with problems that cannot be solved by ordinary gardening advice. They describe men who control, threaten or abuse them and express the wish that those men would disappear. Yoohee recognises the patterns because she has encountered similar treatment herself, including contempt directed at the plants she values.

After closing time, the tone of her work changes. She exchanges her apron for tools and enters the garden by moonlight. The soil conceals the bloody remains of incidents involving men who harmed women. Care, cultivation and murder become part of the same private system in which Yoohee decides what should be protected and what should be removed.

As more men are reported missing, the disappearances become harder to treat as isolated events. A determined young detective visits the shop and begins asking questions. Yoohee must preserve the peaceful appearance of her sanctuary while assessing how much the investigator knows and whether her methods can remain hidden.

The novel combines psychological horror, dark humour and a revenge narrative. Plant care provides its central imagery: damaged roots can recover under the right conditions, while invasive growth may require cutting back. The comparison becomes increasingly disturbing when Yoohee applies the logic of weeding to human beings.

“Plant Lady” explores reinvention after harm, dangerous obsession and misogyny through the contrast between a welcoming shop and the violence beneath its garden. The English-language edition, translated from Korean by Shanna Tan, follows Yoohee as the refuge she created becomes both evidence and a site of confrontation.