A lot of fear, sadness, confusion and anger went into my gardens this past season. They bloomed anyway.

I spent the last week of September harvesting peppers, deadheading phlox and watering the 5-foot-tall zinnias that make up my backyard fence project.

I had this idea back in April to dig a trench along the outside of the fence, dump hundreds of flower seeds into the turned soil and then, well, wait and see what happened.

What happened was incredible. By June, I had myself a bonafide fence garden. Pink, orange and fuchsia buds began to open. They were followed by soaring yellow blooms and pink and white cosmos and, at both ends of the display, enormous red sunflowers.

It looked as if I’d carefully planned the placement of each and every flower. But I hadn’t. Mother Nature was the arti

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