The strange man knocks on the woman’s door. She thinks he’s a salesman, but she immediately gets a different feeling about him. He gives her a packet of seeds, called chamaemelum, and leaves. Right away, the woman calls her best friend, who tells her that she encountered the same man, albeit with a totally different appearance. Confused by the discrepancy, she chalks it up to two different men selling the same seeds.

At dinner she doesn’t tell her husband, as she doesn’t think he’ll believe her and simply scold her instead. She recalls her daughter moving away last year after marriage, how much emptier the house is without her around. Soon enough, the woman decides she wants to start a herb garden, to which her husband tells her to not go overboard with it. She starts the next morning, taking out the weeds that have grown first. She then calls a seed company in order to get the seeds she wants to plant.

When the seeds come, she plants them, along with the strange man’s seeds, and then watches them grow as rain falls later that day. She is all of a sudden invigorated with more feeling for life, now sensing things that feel good or bother her with much greater acuity. Overnight, her sage plant shoots up along with the chamaemelum, and she instantly resolves to plant more flowers. Eventually, when the herb garden grows bigger and bigger, her husband unimpressively asks her how it’s going.

When she meets her best friend later, the best friend reveals that her own husband planted the chamaemelum seeds, which has caused them to uncontrollably grow into crescent moon formations. The woman looks to her own yard and sees that the same plant has also grown quickly, after which he prunes them and makes them into tea. At the back porch, she drinks her tea and prays for her husband’s cornfield to grow just as plentifully and bountifully as her herb garden. When the husband comes home later, he reveals gleefully that it has. She recalls how he hasn’t been that gleeful since they had their daughter, since he left for war. At the cornfield, they marvel at its miraculous growth and make love in their bedroom later that night.

The next morning, the woman feels newly invigorated in her marriage. She makes him breakfast, and he leaves the house after kissing her on the cheek. Soon enough, she hears a car pulling up to her house, knowing that it has to be the strange man from before. She shows him to the herb garden where his plants have grown, and he observes it all approvingly. As they talk, she notices that he can change shape and transform at will. He says that he’ll come back to check on the herb garden in the future, and she asks him what form he’ll take then. He says he could be anything, and she recommends that he become a songbird. He then vanishes out of thin air.