if something doubles, meaning it has a growth rate of 100%, like say hmmmmm, your flowers in the garden are hmmm 25, next morning they're 50, they doubled, their rate of growth is 100%, meaning the next morning they are 100% more than the day before.
if they have doubled 3 times, that means 18+18+18 months have passed, or 54 months.

of course 54/18 is 3.