By Gillian Graham
Staff Writer
There is color everywhere: pink in the window boxes, orange and yellow in the gardens, purple on the shutters.
Sally Webb’s garden is overflowing, barely contained by a white fence that separates it from Main Street in Springvale.
“It’s my passion, my last passion probably,” Webb said as she walked alongside her garden. She moved to this house 15 years ago and has been planting ever since.
The home’s previous owner told her that nothing would grow in front of the house, though Webb has proved him wrong.
Webb, 70, has a wide variety of plants in her gardens, but describes herself as a daylily person because she is fascinated by the variation of the flowers. She has daylilies in a number of colors, including yellow and orange.
“You can’t kill them with a hammer,” Webb said.
While Webb tends to favor pastel-colored flowers, she loves the poppies that bloom orange and red in a “blast of color.” This year, her window boxes feature petunias, marigolds and geraniums.
“I have a terrible weakness for plants,” Webb said. “I like flowers that are relatively independent growers.”
Outside her fence, Webb has planted colorful annuals along the sidewalk. She said she has an ongoing battle with the town sidewalk plow, which “decimates” anything planted there through the winter. Webb hates the telephone pole right in front of her home, so she has planted flowers around its base to make it more attractive.
Webb’s front door is currently green and the shutters pale purple, though those change on a regular basis, she said.
“I paint according to the garden and my own whims,” she said.
In the four-and-a-half-foot by four-and-a-half-foot garden she calls her farm, Webb grows beets, carrots, eggplants, beans, tomatoes, zucchini, basil and winter squash. She also has a peach tree growing nearby. Webb said it began as a “mini” tree in a basket and now stands nearly 10 feet tall.  
 And then there is the backyard. Stepping into it is like stepping into a place far removed from the traffic on Main Street and bright summer sun. Everything here is green.
Webb’s yard slopes gently down to the banks of the Mousam River and is shaded by large maple trees. A Buddha statue sits in the center of a garden at the edge of the river. A statue of Saint Francis across the yard provides balance, Webb said.
Webb, who loves the body of water behind her home, said she is the self-proclaimed “Duchess of the Mousam.”
Webb has been working on her “hosta project” in the backyard, which has involved planting nearly 160 new hostas. Her goal for the project is to have all the plants grow together, creating a “wave of different greens.”
Webb has planted a variety of hostas, all purchased from local nurseries. Hostas are leafy perennials that grow close to the ground. Several of her hostas have lavender and white flowers.
“It’s the foliage that moves me,” Webb said. “There’s something serene about them. They’re good for your head.”
The back deck, full of potted plants and a table covered by an umbrella, overlooks the hosta gardens and the river. This is where Webb said she hides out when she’s not busy pulling weeds.
Webb said she inherited the “gardening gene” from her family. Her grandfather and great-grandfather were both professional gardeners at large estates, and other members of her family gardened as well.
Webb, who grew up in Osterville, Mass., recalled the Hubbard squash she planted when she was  12 or 13. She planted the seeds near the septic system and grew a 40-pound squash.
“That got me hooked,” she said.
Webb’s advice to new gardeners is to keep it small, use good dirt and ask lots of questions.
“If you start too big, you can lose heart,” she said.
Webb frequently has people stop to look at her garden, ask questions and take pictures. Recently, a woman stopped by to ask if Webb would be willing to trade some plants with her. The two will reconnect in another month or so to make the switch.
Webb is on the board of the Springvale Public Library and is a Friend of the Library.
“I’ve been a reader my whole life,” Webb said. “As I get older, I find non-fiction has more appeal.”
Webb also enjoys classical and jazz music. She traveled to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City for the first time last fall. She also attends the opera in Portland every year.
She has been a registered nurse for 50 years and is a certified diabetes educator. She works one day each week at York Hospital educating patients about diabetes.
Her adventures in nursing began while she was a Girl Scout learning basic nursing skills. While feeding a patient tomato soup, Webb passed out cold. Once recovered, she told her mom she would never be a nurse.
But economic reasons led Webb to take back that promise. She enrolled at Faulkner Hospital School of Nursing in Jamaica Plain, Mass., from 1957 to 1960. She paid $493, which included room and board. Webb said she became interested in diabetes education because her youngest brother had type I diabetes.
Webb’s “claim to fame” involves nursing, not her garden, she said. While back in Osterville in 1963, Webb took a job helping a nurse who cared for Joseph Kennedy Sr. On her last day, Secret Service Agent Hamilton Brown ran through the door yelling that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. The news had yet to reach radio and television stations.
Webb said the entire compound was crawling with Secret Service as everyone tried to figure out what was going on. At that moment, there were fears that the entire Kennedy family might be targeted.
Webb moved to Maine with her now ex-husband 31 years ago, settling first in Alfred. She raised one son, Matt Anson, who still brings her plants for the garden.
Webb said her garden is so full she has to be selective about what she adds, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“[Flowers] are good for my head,” she said. “They’re good for my soul.”