Sandy Back’s Garden of Eden is just a few feet from her back door, an elegant paradise she sculpted over the past decade from a colorless “dirt-and-weed patch.”

“This is my place to putter and enjoy the beauty of God’s nature,” said Back, a McLennan County Master Gardener and retired schoolteacher who practices her craft on a half-acre tract in Hewitt.

Back also lends her talents to planting beds at the Carleen Bright Arboretum in Woodway and a bed she designed for a public space in McGregor, both of which showcase Texas Superstar plants.

Texas Superstar roses are among Sandy Back’s favorite plants.
Jerry Larson/Tribune-Herald

At her own place, Back’s frontyard style is somewhat formal.

Out back, her yard is still manicured, but less formal and more comfortable.

“I like a backyard to be inviting and a little bit more of a relaxed atmosphere,” she said.

The educator and expert is still very much a student, though, and her yard is still evolving.

“My plants should have Velcro on them,” she said of her habit of moving things around in a never-ending dance of trial and error.

If she could turn back the calendar to 1999, Back said she’d do many things differently, some the same and some not at all.

What works for her, though, might not be your preference.

“Peoples’ yards are very personal,” she said. “It’s sort of like the clothes they wear.”

This week she shared the following advice and information, gleaned from years of experience planting for herself and others.

Garden design

Back jumped in and designed her yard as it evolved, without a master plan.

It’s not a choice she recommends.

A plan might have prevented her from putting the family’s arbor too far from the house and pool. It would have taken into account the placement of her sprinkler heads and the types of heads.

For their half acre, Back and her husband, Andy, planted 50 percent of the yard themselves. They turned to hired hands for the really big stuff.

If you plan to build planting beds yourself, Sandy Back recommends mixing shale and compost into your dirt to break up McLennan County’s claylike soil. Both ingrediants are easy to find in the area.

“Your plants will thank you for the rest of their lives,” she said.

What not to do

Back learns from her mistakes. There are many things she would not do again.

She would not recommend brick pavers for edging planting beds. Back’s yard features Bermuda grass, which tends to creep between the pavers and gets into the beds.

Back also would plant fewer Nellie R. Stevens hollies in the back corner of her yard. This particular specimen, though hardy, grows quite large.

Back also is sorry for planting her hollies a little too close together.

“We want instant gratification and ‘ram jam’ them together” and forget that they will grow,” she said.

Master Gardener Sandy Back found success with rose bushes.
Jerry Larson/Waco Tribune-Herald

This is an important thing to remember, no matter which variety of shrub you are planting.

On the arbor, she regrets using trumpet vine 10 years ago. She still finds evidence of the invasive, coral-flowering creeper popping up in the beds near the arbor.

“It should be against the law,” she said.

The arbor today is covered with a much more mild-mannered climber — tangerine cross vine.

What she’d do again

“I love, love, love the roses,” said Back, whose yard features many Texas Superstar varieties.

Texas Superstar plants have been tested at Texas A&M University and Texas State Technical College. They have shown themselves to be terrific performers in the Texas landscape.

For a list, see the website at www.texassuperstar.com.

Back said she never considered planting roses years ago because they were considered disease-prone and fussy.

But now her yard is alive with many varieties of the newer, easy-to-grow show-stoppers such as Knockout, Fairy and Livin’ Easy roses.

“Roses have such great longevity,” Back said.

The payoff

Back enjoys the curvy shapes of her planting beds, particularly the beds anchoring the two back corners of the yard, where she has room to plant and play with a variety of perennials.

The yard also features a rock garden. Back recently has grown to “really enjoy and appreciate” the flowering red yucca, which she incorporated into other parts of her yard.

In the shade

Of her trees, Back is fond of the yard’s Burr oaks. She’s grown weary of her Bradford pear and regrets its overuse around town.

She and her husband will outlive the pear, but not the oaks.

Other good trees for McLennan County include the Chinese pistache, live oaks, red oaks, Chinkapin (or Chinquapin) oaks, lacey oaks and Shantung maples.

Sandy and Andy Back incorporated a rock garden in their half-acre landscape, which they gradually developed during the last 10 years.
Jerry Larson/Waco Tribune-Herald

The lawn

Back’s lawn is a gorgeous expanse of Tiff Bermuda, as velvety underfoot as the 18th green at Augusta and a good choice for her sunny yard. But she would not recommend it for a shady yard.

Like St. Augustine, Tiff Bermuda — which is different from Coastal Bermuda — has to be sodded, not seeded. Its watering requirements are about the same.

Unlike St. Augustine, though, Tiff Bermuda is not prone to fungus, chinch bugs or Take-All Patch.

The only minor complaint she has is that it spreads underground so you can’t always see where it’s creeping.