In 1961, when Doris Brown and her husband Keith moved to their 5-year-old home at 75 Grove Street in Brewer, where was no garden. Only shrubs that were popular for most homes then adorned the lot.

Though little time remained after her work and family duties, she “had to have flowers.” Soon flower-filled window boxes replaced the shrubs.

Doris may have inherited her green thumb from her mother, who, she said, “had great talent for putting the colors together. I loved and appreciated her flower garden.”

When she finally began tilling the soil, she discovered the ubiquitous Brewer blue clay, which continues to challenge her. “It’s taken a long time to condition the soil,” she said. “It’s an ongoing process, since the clay works its way up.”

As her children grew and she eventually retired, she spent more time in the garden. She may not have a formal education in horticulture, she seems to have a direct line to Mother Nature when it comes to planting her gardens in the front, sides, and back of her house.

Through experience, trial and error and a little luck, she learned the sun-loving annuals and perennials, those that prefer some shade or total shade. Now her gardening is a full-time, year-round avocation, that she “just loves.” Other publications have written about her gardens, neighbors enjoy the bountiful blooms as they stroll or run by, and others follow the progress of each plant, whose names span the alphabet from asters to zinnias. Spring through fall, Doris’ garden attracts attention from walkers, runners, and drivers, who stop and stare at the gardens that look they posed for a magazine cover. Often a passerby will note the toil it took to tend such gardens. Yet, for Doris, gardening remains a pure pleasure, that despite its professional appearance is “just a hobby. Other people enjoy the gardens so much,” she acknowledged , “but I get all the pleasure.”

She professes to have no favorites, yet she prizes her 8-year-old hanging geranium. Most geraniums she starts from seed, except for some treasures that she can prune and repot in fresh soil to await spring planting.

While some people enjoy patronizing libraries or shopping malls, Doris frequents several local greenhouses each for its distinctive offerings. Occassionally, she will overhear some wanna-be gardeners, who seem to believe that they need only to “dig a hole, drop in the plant, and that’s it,” she said. “That’s not it!

“I just love to go to the greenhouse,” she said, where she goes bearing a specific list for each vendor depending on their offerings. Some greenhouse owners have requested Doris to photograph her garden so they can see how “their” plants grow there. She knows the name of every flower in the garden. Copious details abound from the ground up in gardening, from mid-winter planning to twice-daily watering and dead-heading (picking off the dead blossoms) in summer, to putting the garden to sleep in the fall.

“It’s very hard for me to let go for fall,” Doris said. The hands-on gardening may be winding down, yet the garden continues to grow until the first frost. Though it’s fall, each day is filled with preparations that will ensure a healthy garden in the spring. Perennials, like her prize peonies, still require watering, feeding, and pruning to insure a healthy rebirth in spring.

Some new perennials will premiere next year: Five mixed primroses, which may be light pink or deep pink, will join the other garden varieties in some of the blank spaces left from Doris’ skillful thinning and pruning.

Raking fall leaves may seem a nuisance to some, but to Doris they are like gold. After the September and October frosts shake the leaves from the trees, she rakes them, grinds them into small pieces, and fills trash bags with them. Those bags will insulate her plants’ roots from rose bushes to vines.

When she has filled all the bags, leftover leaves and the remains of many potted plants grace the compost pile. Like icing on an earthly cake, Doris liberally dusts the pile with lime and 5-10-5 fertilizer. Natural decomposition turns the mixed vegetation into nutrient-rich black compost. In spring, she dumps the leaf-filled bags onto the compost, which is used as mulch, that keeps the soil loose and retains moisture for new plantings.

It may be cold, but when winter weather forces Doris indoors, she “digs out the graph paper to plan what annuals to plant, according to height and color, and whether they like shade or sun.”