In a series of letters a boy, his science teacher, and his parents discuss the progress of a very unusual, sometimes frightening, plant that becomes more human as the summer progresses.

"Two women, separated by a generation but equally scarred by war find hope, meaning and friendship through a garden of flowers. Iris Maynard lost her husband in World War II, her daughter to loneliness and, finally, her reason to live. Walled off from the world for decades behind a towering fence surrounding her home and gardens, Iris has built a new family ... of flowers. Iris propagates her own daylilies and roses while tending to an heirloom garden...

Thirteen-year-old Nyle learns about relationships and death when fifteen-year-old Ezra, who was exposed to radiation leaked from a nearby nuclear plant, comes to stay at her grandmother's Vermont farmhouse.

As a tiny shoot unfolds, a myriad of insects peer at it and wonder what it could be.

Millie Fleur La Fae is new in Garden Glen, and she plans to plant her garden of strange and sometimes dangerous plants, but the town garden club does not approve of her and wants to tear it down.

Two roads lead to Mount Hope. None leads out. There's no place to run in a community that's been taken--and is being intentionally kept--off the grid. A small southern town was evacuated after a freak power-plant accident. As the first anniversary of the mishap approaches, some residents are allowed to return past the national guard roadblocks. Mount Hope natives Maggie and Jordan quickly discover that their hometown is not as it was before. Downed...