Vince Dooley's Amazing Garden

Home and Garden

Vince Dooley's Amazing Garden

Vince Dooley and his wife, Barbara, will eternally be associated with Georgia football. Their sprawling four-acre garden in Athens reveals a different passion: gardening.

Former University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley and his wife, Barbara, have shared this Athens home for 40 years. What at first seems like a traditional landscape slowly reveals a passion beyond football: a sprawling 5-acre garden including their own acreage and leased land.

The front yard of the Dooley house was the place for pick-up football. Now the area is flanked by camellias, Japanese maples, weeping conifers and roses.

A white footbridge crosses over what Coach Dooley calls "Weeper's Creek." After a loss, the legendary Bulldogs coach would stand over the stream and weep, he jokes. The bald cypress 'Cascade Falls' and other weeping trees and shrubs grows alongside the stream.

Here Dooley stands beside his eponymous Dooley hydrangea, named after him by famed UGA horticulturalist and friend Michael Dirr.

Despite her husband's wish to chop it down, Barbara Dooley has championed the cause of this gnarled mulberry tree. It's her favorite tree in the garden. Coach Dooley said the tree came with the house some four decades ago.

A variety of camellia sasanquas grow alongside the driveway. This area connects the Dooley property with nearly three acres they lease from their neighbors.

Bronze statues of children are sprinkled throughout the Dooley garden. Here, in a waterfall pond designed by Ron Deal, "Nina" reads a book while her brother "Billy" fishes. The Dooleys have four children and 11 grandchildren.

This stone patio once served as party central during football season. But since Vince Dooley retired as athletic director in 2004, the backyard space now houses hundreds of container plants, including his collection of Japanese maples and bonsai. Two large Chinese elms provide shade from the Georgia heat.

Dooley experiments with bonsai trees in his container garden, where he grows Japanese maples and azaleas in pots.

Coach Dooley says he's never met a Japanese maple he didn't like, including this Acer palmatum 'Beni shichihenge.'

Coach Dooley's container collection surrounds the pool. He has planted nearly every pocket of his landscape and says his greatest gardening challenge is finding room for more.

This Asimina triloba, or pawpaw tree, grows behind the Dooleys' home.

Coach Dooley holds a silver-colored identification tag he engraved for this conifer. Dooley engraves and labels each plant in his expansive garden.

Dooley walks through The Mathis Garden, a nearly three-acre plot he leases from his next-door neighbor. The garden is in memory of Mrs. William (Jeanne) Mathis. Dooley said he likes to take a walk through the property every morning after his workout.

This plum leaf azalea, a Georgia native, is one of the latest azaleas to bloom in the summer. With Dirr, Dooley experiments with azaleas at his home. "It's a garden for all seasons, because regardless of when you come here, something is always happening," Dooley said.

Dooley examines the exfoliating bark of this 'Fantasy' crape myrtle in the Mathis Garden. "I absolutely enjoy being outdoors ..." Dooley said. "It's good for the spirit and its good for the soul." Text: Katie Leslie / kleslie@ajc.com

1/16

Former University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley and his wife, Barbara, have shared this Athens home for 40 years. What at first seems like a traditional landscape slowly reveals a passion beyond football: a sprawling 5-acre garden including their own acreage and leased land.

Today's Gallery Headlines

Jimmy Carter ‘forever’ stamp

PHOTOS: 2025 AJC Photos of the Year

Coca-Cola first ad

PHOTOS: Coca-Cola ads over time

Alonzo Herndon

PHOTOS: Philanthropists leave mark on Atlanta

gainesville, thomas county central

PHOTOS: Thomas County Central pummels Gainesville for 5A state title