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 artist. I, her paintbrush.

The new garden complemented my vegetable, memory and perennial gardens, adding to my backyard color and already heavy workload.

Is there anything that can stop you in your tracks than a hummingbird making a stop at your garden? These are the distractions columnist Donna Vickroy lives for, she says. (Donna Vickroy/Naperville Sun)

Every morning I visited all of them and marveled at their beauty. I stood at the back fence, sometimes for hours, trying to forget the world’s chaos by capturing photos of the visiting hummingbirds and floating butterflies.

How could I not cry when October came, dimming the light and prepping the gardens for a long winter’s night?

The flowers had become my pride and joy, symbols of beauty and resilience in a time that has brought so much ugliness and uncertainty, and certainly, a distraction from the constant barrage of bad news.

I have always been amazed by nature’s resilience, its ability to bloom anyway, even in droughts, even in times of turmoil, even when humans mistreat it, even in war zones.

It’s astounding, Mother Nature’s audacity to thrive despite all that humans throw at it.

But, part of the deal, in these parts anyway, is that the seasons must change.

I don’t dislike fall or even winter. I just prefer the growing months to the grieving ones. Now that so many family and friends have succumbed to the winters of their lives, even the death of a Mexican sunflower hits hard.

Goodbyes these days hit hard. They are portals into your deepest pain — a parent succumbing to illness or a sister grasping your hand as a doctor says the word “terminal.”

There aren’t enough flowers in the world to offset the pain of losing a loved one, or the horror of seeing images of children zip-tied, or the fear of mass shootings, or the uneasiness of watching masked officers throw people to the streets, or the sorrow of living through the disintegration of a once thriving nation.

But what’s a peace-loving empath to do?

For much of the summer, I’d tried desperately to capture a good photo of the hummingbirds who’d become frequent visitors, sometimes sitting quietly for stretches of time, just waiting.

Yet, it was when I didn’t have my phone that one would fly close, as if to say “Relish the moment, not the souvenir.”

At some point, I let go of that pursuit and agreed to simply let them be. I was grateful that they visited at all and I made sure to keep the feeders clean, changing the sugar water every couple of days.

As I circled the hose around the landscape, sad at how still the salvia seemed and how tarnished the zinnias looked. I figured the tiny birds had left on their migratory journey and the flowers felt as lost as I did without them.

Then, suddenly, I spied the flutter of rapidly beating tiny wings.

A hummingbird flitted in front of my face, hovering for, oh, maybe 10 seconds. We seemed to stare at each other. She needed to go. Just maybe she was saying not goodbye, but I’ll be back?

Like the sunflowers of Ukraine, my flowers have given me strength during tumultuous times. And so I tend to them fiercely.

Already I am gathering seeds, planting bulbs and turning soil for next year.

It is good work, hard work, work that is tedious and exhausting.

I do it because I am called to do it. And because, like all effort, it brings reward.

Each bloom adds beauty to the landscape, food for the circle of life and something so many humans need desperately these days — hope.

Donna Vickroy is an award-winning reporter, editor and columnist who worked for the Daily Southtown for 38 years. She can be reached at donnavickroy4@gmail.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/11/vickroy-column-garden-hope-distraction-world/