Dr. Dirt's green-thumb garden.

Leon Goldsberry is a natural-born gardener. His green thumb has transformed his 109-year-old homeplace in Edwards (pop. 1,279) into an Eden-like garden known throughout the Mississippi Delta. His unorthodox approach to working the earth draws visitors like honeybees searching for hidden honeysuckle.

Goldsberry's legal name doesn't conjure up images of plants with Latin names and Biblical beauty. He is much better known by the nom de plume "Dr. Dirt." This name, which the 57-year old onetime expatriate prefers, has become increasingly famed--through magazine articles, appearances on a Home and Garden Television program called "Gardener's Diary," and word of mouth around the region.

Tour buses often stop at Dr. Dirt's garden wonderland, and he is a popular speaker to garden groups around the state. Billie Cline of Brookhaven, a recent visitor, describes her trip there as "a unique experience ... a step back in time to exquisite beauty."

Following a 30-year career in Canada as a childcare worker, Dr. Dirt returned to his hometown nine years ago to care for his mother Millie, who passed away two years later, it was then that he decided to name his creation, already vividly alive with many of her favorite plants, "Millie's Gardens."

Dr. Dirt hammers home his standard message to every visitor and group he meets: "Dirt, just plain dirt, and maybe a little triple 13 fertilizer is all it takes to grow stuff." The other half of his message involves plants--more specifically, " ... native plants. Plants that don't get sick in plain dirt." He has no use for plants that have to be pampered.

Townsfolk in Edwards have been inspired by how plants burst into beauty at Dr. Dirt's touch. Plants that originated in Millie's Gardens have found new homes all across this small town. That others appreciate the joy of having their own gardens is to this native son the greatest reward.

"I love anything that grows out of dirt," he says. "It's just amazing, from the tiniest flower to the largest tree."

Many see Leon Goldsberry, who studied sociology at Rust College in Holly Springs before moving to Toronto for three decades, as a man on a mission. With his unbounded enthusiasm, he seems truly inspired to spread his gardening philosophy to as many people as possible.

"Gardening is simple and it's easy. Don't let folks make it hard for you," Dr. Dirt likes to say. " I feel very close to my nature in my garden. If you accept the Judeo-Christian belief that the Creator drew man out of dirt ... I really believe that. As a kid, if I cut my foot or something, my morn would put some red dirt on it and it would heal up and scab over."

Goldsberry's house, surrounded by his colorful gardens, was built by his great-grandfather, Samuel Bland, who came from North Carolina.

"I've been interested in plants ever since I can remember. When Mum went to work, my young sisters and l stayed in this house with our grandparents. Even when she used to clean and cook and work in the community for people, she always had flowers--and a regular vegetable garden."

As a boy, Dr. Dirt often accompanied his uncle and grandfather out into the countryside. "The woods were right here. Sassafras grew in the wintertime. 1 drank sassafras tea with my granddad."

Sometimes he would spend a weekend with an aunt and uncle who lived in the country, and his love for nature grew. "It was neat walking around in all that foliage and stuff. But I used to get a beating for going out in the woods by myself."

Because of his interest in plants and his desire to learn cooking, young Leon was teased a lot by his playmates. Fistfights were common on the school grounds. "About this time of year (March), you see daffodils and stuff. I would pick them and take them as a bouquet for the teacher. Boys called me a teacher's pet, but teachers loved the little bouquets."

Dr. Dirt's parents grew traditional garden plants: "mustard greens, sweet potatoes, bell peppers, acorn squash, what we call crook-neck squash now. They had what you would call an old fashioned garden. But we always had some of the perennial flowers that are in our yard today. I have hydrangea that's 98, years old." Other old plants still around this place include flowering quince, purple dahlia, and the vividly hued "Paul's Scarlet Climber" roses.

While Dr. Dirt doesn't drive a car and now spends most of his time tending plants in his garden and overseeing planting projects around his hometown, the world is beginning to beat a path to his door. As a result of the attention he has received, he has hosted visitors from both U.S. coasts and even from such faraway places as Japan and Germany.

Dr. Dirt enjoys these visitors. With evangelical zeal, he likes to "give them advice, and show them how I grow stuff in nothing but dirt. I usually take folks on tours. That's why I ask them to call me before they come. Sometimes little buses come with 15 or 20 people from churches and other places. They like to see the old-fashioned stuff I grow--and that their parents and grandparents grew. These are plants I love. They're my style. I keep collecting them."

His noteworthy collection also includes things like David Austin antique roses, which cover arbors here, and the thriving ivy that coats trellises. Follow the pathways in the garden and discover what Dr. Dirt calls "garden art." There is an old toilet adorned with a ranch rose called "Martha Gonzalez," painted bird houses, whimsical signs, pink flamingos, and old shovel handles that stand guard over flower beds.

This unique gardener doesn't fear breaking tradition. He marches to his own drumbeat in the soil lie so gently tills. "Some neighbors have called my yard a jungle. They have never been to a jungle and I have. Because of the climate in the South, our humidity, I grow things like banana plants. Some say I mix colors, but nature mixes colors. I know I'm not crazy. I just love flowers."

Millie's Gardens are now an oasis of beauty between Jackson and Vicksburg. When Vicksburg hosted the Mississippi Master Gardeners annual conference last year, County Extension Director Terry Rector exulted. "I don't think the other presenters will mind me saying that Dr. Dirt was the one who brought the house down. He even had requests for autographs."

So many master gardeners were eager to see Millie's Gardens that Rector had to draw a map to iris house "for all the folks who were going to stop by his house on their way home." Rector's own excitement about Dr. Dirt's unusual paradise no doubt contributed to their interest. "The house is surrounded by a fence adorned with homemade signs about gardening," Rector says. "There is no grass in the yard because the one time as a kid tie brought home a sprig of St. Augustine from 'the other side of the tracks,' his mother told him to get rid of it and never plant a sprig of grass in her yard."

"I suppose," Rector continues, "Dr. Dirt is a rarity hereabouts in that he is an African-American gardening speaker, a fact he incorporates into his presentations. He uses humor, animation, and a touch of religious fervor to bring out the fact that gardening doesn't have to be complicated."

Millie's Gardens are filled with such a profusion of plants that most people, even experienced gardeners, would be hard-pressed to earn a passing grade in naming them. But to Dr. Dirt they are like his children and he knows them by name: candlestick plant, "turk's turban," hardy orange (Poncirus trifoliata), and swamp sunflower (Helianthus angustifolius). Everywhere one looks are both modern and heirloom plants: cockscomb, soapwort, begonias, elephant's ears, and bleeding hearts.

Goldsberry is now writing a book oil his gardening experience, with the help of retired Extension Service horticulturist Felder Rushing.

"I am (also) now on a weekly public radio program with him," Dr. Dirt adds. "It's a brand-new statewide program that will also be carried in surrounding states like Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, and Louisiana."

Still, Goldsberry lives modestly in his old family home, gaining a little extra income from the sale of heirloom plants that appeal to visitors and from the gardening assistance he sometimes lends to neighbors in Edwards. Disproving the adage that "you can't go home again," he is at peace among the plants that are like old friends.

So where did Goldsberry get the name "Dr. Dirt" in the first place? It turns out that he was inspired by the colorful monikers other gardening experts gave themselves on his favorite radio and television programs. One woman in Memphis identified herself as the "Dirt Queen." Another horticulturist called himself the "Old Dirt Dauber." Goldsberry liked the sound of these names with their references to dirt since, as he notes, "Everything starts from dirt. Everything returns to dirt."

Long before Goldsberry himself returns to dirt, he will have left his mark--not only through Millie's Gardens, but also through the hundreds of amateur and master gardeners he has inspired.

To schedule a tour of Millie's Gardens, contact Dr. Dirt at 601/668-6209, or write him at P.O. Box 76, Edwards, MS 39066.

THE DOCTOR IS IN

Dr. Dirt offers a few practical gardening tips for both green thumbs and beginners:

1. Teach yore children--and grandchildren. "That's my number one advice."

2. Root your plants in good dirt.

3. Grow more than one thing in a flower pot or flower bed. You can plant some bulbs under your shrubs.

4. Be "water-wise." Always provide adequate water for your plants.

5. Plant native plants, wild plants. Plant something suitable for your own zone.

6. Plant seeds that your grandparents grew.

7. Composting is important. Let your leaves rot; don't burn them.