When you think of Vince Dooley, you likely recall that 1980 national championship, the six Southeastern Conference titles and his four decades of dominance over the University of Georgia's athletic kingdom.

What you may not know is that when he wasn't between the hedges at Sanford stadium, Coach Dooley could be found at home in his Athens garden, designing his personal paradise.

Joey Ivansco / jivansco@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

A waterfall pond is a peaceful spot in Vince Dooley's garden, which spreads over more than 2 1/2 acres and includes a wide variety of plants.

Joey Ivansco / jivansco@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

Vince Dooley's interest in gardening grew from a horticulture class taken 12 years ago into a passion that covers the 2 1/2 acres at his Athens home.

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"I think some of my fellow coaches scratch their heads when they hear about me and gardening," he said. "This is my golf."

About 12 years ago, Dooley enrolled in gardening classes with famed UGA horticulture professor Michael Dirr, an expert in woody perennials.

Barbara Dooley said she assumed her husband would take one or two courses and be satisfied, just as he had when they studied art history and other subjects for fun.

"Little did I know Michael Dirr would inhabit his body," she bemoaned.

Dooley took to gardening like Herschel Walker to the end zone. One class led to another, and under Dirr's tutelage, Dooley quickly became a master of azaleas, camellias and Japanese maples.

"I never met one I didn't like," he said, adding that his garden has more than 100 varieties.

And as a true Dirr disciple, Dooley easily recites the Latin names of the thousands of plants in his landscape. He even engraves and adorns a silver identification tag on each perennial, tree and shrub.

Because if you're Vince Dooley, you go all the way.

"He can spew out more Latin than most Latin scholars," Dirr said. "I think he's truly a Renaissance football coach."

Dirr recalls Dooley's distinctive presence in his horticulture classes. The UGA legend was the only student wearing a button-down shirt and red tie as the students traipsed through landscapes.

"He stood out like a red apple in a bunch of Granny Smiths," Dirr laughed.

The two are now working on the garden to be featured in the Vince Dooley Athletic Complex at UGA, and were recently in Hickory, N.C., selecting unusual plants for the space. The teaching garden is on track to be unveiled Oct. 11 during the Tennessee game.

Dirr is also behind the 'Dooley' hydrangea, a rich blue variety praised for its hardiness. But the name doesn't come from the fact that Dooley is "tough as nails" or "smart as a whip," Dirr said. Rather, it was discovered blooming in Dooley's garden after a serious frost in the mid-1990s.

Vince and Barbara Dooley's property is a mini-botanical garden of sorts, with the land divided into designated areas. Bosom buddy Dirr can often be found there experimenting with newly cultivated plants.

The poolside patio, once the locale for pre-football festivities, now houses containers of hydrangeas and Japanese maples.

Dooley chose an adjacent area for a flowering perennial garden, featuring Asiatic jasmine and echinacea, as well as a waterfall pond. Nearby, he tends to a shade garden with several varieties of hostas and ferns, which give way to a sweeping swath of land he calls Camellia Lane.

"It's a garden for all seasons, because regardless of when you come here, something is always happening," he said.

A small stream runs through the front of the property, an area the football great calls "Weeper's Creek." The name isn't derived solely from the weeping trees and shrubs lining the water, he said, nor because of the towering bald cypress 'Cascade Falls'.

"After a football game [loss], I'd come out here and weep," Dooley joked.

His greatest gardening challenge is space; the 2 1/2 acres on his property are now densely planted, prompting him to lease nearly three acres from his next-door neighbor. Every morning after he exercises in his poolside workout room, Dooley likes to walk through the garden. He supports his landscape with water from the stream on his property, rain barrels and compost he makes himself.

Barbara took a gardening class years ago at her husband's request but admits she slept through it out of boredom. Now, she leaves the landscape almost entirely to Dooley, save for an attractive planter or urn she occasionally brings home.

But like any savvy shopper, she rips off the price tag before he sees it.

"If my husband knew how much I spent on pots, he'd throw up," she said.

Vince Dooley said he and his wife have separate but equal duties when it comes to tending to their home.

"Barbara is in charge of domestic affairs (the house); I'm in charge of foreign affairs (the garden)," he said.

His love of plants once caused a wrinkle in their now 48-year marriage. Around the time of their 39th anniversary, he brought in a crane and landscaping crew to install a full-grown Japanese maple in their front yard.

Barbara thought he was joking when, after it was planted, he turned and said, "Happy anniversary."

"Then I thought, I know there's a diamond necklace up in there," she said, adding she combed the lower branches for a bauble. "There was nothing."

Vince Dooley laughs when recalling the story, but admits he learned a lesson: "Let's just say I can't get her another Japanese maple."