I bought a fully fenced house during the pandemic.  It came with two rickety wood fences joined to each side of the house in the front by respective rotting gates.  They were increasingly hard to open and close over the years.  They elicited many improper words from my being.  The parallel fences were completed in the back yard by a black chain link fence in between them. 

The HOA had just finished replacing the wooden perimeter fence with that chain link one that would last, supposedly, until the end of time.  Just not the shape of it.  The shape can be modified with children (not mine) kicking it.  But that is a story for another day.

I thought the chain link looked awful.  It completely exposed me to the street behind my house with the rows of townhomes and cars.  A week or two later, the fence company that installed it went through the neighborhood threading dark green slats through the metal links.  Not my choice…HOA mandated.  It was ugly.

One neighbor used a black tarp to cover the whole fence in their backyard.  For privacy, I think.  A small piece of it is tied to my fence.  Unsightly, but I leave it to be neighborly.  Another left the chain link alone.  They later sold and moved on.  As for me, I wanted to hide mine and I intended to use nature to do so.

As it turns out, the green slats blend in nicely with the chocolate vines I have growing on the fence now.  I planted four of them that first spring.   They caught my eye with their little white flowers at a local nursery.  To this day, I still don’t think they smell like chocolate.  I explained my fence dilemma to the man working there and asked him if the chocolate vines would do the trick. 

The man assured me that the they would take to my fence easily and spread just the same.  My hope was to cover the whole damn fence with the organic material.  A natural looking back fence.  Something to blend into the garden I intended to plant.

What I didn’t know is that those same chocolate vines would evoke their own manifest destiny upon my yard.  Upon the fence (intended).  Upon any nearby plants their tendrils could reach.  Upon the tree branches above.  Their relentless colonization even seems to seek the sky overhead, and I suspect, ultimately the whole universe.  For now, I use garden wire to tether them to the fence and pruning shears to rescue my other plants.  At least the fence is now pretty.

I am now imaging that man from the nursery in my memory with a Jeff Goldblum  voice.  He is warning me in some cheeky way.  Did he warn me?  Did he say those vines would take over the world as I know it?  I cannot remember now.  It’s been a good number of years since that conversation took place.  I have accepted that Pandora’s box has been opened.  And so my shears will remain at the ready. 

As for the remaining fences, the HOA doesn’t have (much) jurisdiction over those separating neighbors.  That’s why they were still wood and mine.  Or at least one of them was.  Fence ownership is a murky business when houses have changed hands over the years.  And the two fences were many years old. 

One fence was bowed in at one place due to a combination of neglect, old wood in a rainy environment, and my neighbor’s two huge dogs who constantly jumped against it while barking at me.  As a new homeowner, repairs had to be prioritized, and it wasn’t until about a year and a half ago that both side fences were actually replaced. 

After a few band-aid type fixes which included metal T-posts, a fresh windstorm took down the front gate on one side.  I could no longer put off the replacement.  A neighbor (not the one with the fence crushing dogs), was redoing what was “his” part of the fence.  I had his contractor do both sides of mine so they would match.  Part of his fence was my responsibility because of where a house line starts…HOA stuff.  I guess.

So I paid for one whole fence and part of another.  Homeownership is an expensive endeavor.  I did negotiate a sweet sturdy new arbor over one of the new gates though.  I’m trying to grow star jasmine on it. 

Good fences make good neighbors.  That’s what they say.  I just Googled who “they” are and now I am down a rabbit hole about to read Mending Wall by Robert Frost. 

My mind shifts to when I was moving out of my house during my divorce.  My bestie told me, “it’s just walls.”  It comforted me a little when not much comfort could be found.  But now, within my outside walls, I find comfort in the garden the fences enclose.  Safety. Sanctuary. Peace.

Soon I will know if Mr. Frost’s view aligns with my own art of fencing.