You might experiment using your lawnmower, especially with any inside bends. Think long and gradual, progressing slowly.

Thank you - excellent idea. I just hope the grass grows back...it's dying for some reason. I could also use the garden hose - it's 100 feet long.

Here's a few examples from one of my gardens. Slow and gradual..not short and choppy.

I would make the bed with smooth lines and maybe a soft gradual bump out around the largest tree. Having an undulating line against a straight fence doesn't make much sense. Curves and bump-outs should have a purpose- to go around large trees or other features. A straight-ish line will simplify maintenance and allow the plants to provide interest.

The grass is dying because you live in Utah and probably only get 12" of rain a year. You should look into drought tolerant trees and grasses (check out sheep fescue).

Alley cat - very lovely garden you have. Skip - I agree not too many curves. I have an irrigation system so it shouldn't die with the water. Plants/grass does die here very quickly so I am thinking of replacing the grass with something more drought tolerant. I will look into sheep fescue. I took the grass out on the side of the house and put in rocks and pavers plus garden boxes with drip irrigation. I plan on doing that to the other side of the house.

The pictures are not good for conveying information back to you. They need to be a panoramic taken while the camera is in line with the center of the view ... instead of from the ends of the view. Still, there is plenty of room for misinterpretation if feedback is in a perspective picture. You really need to provide a base plan that shows the fence layout, the house location and the trees locations.

Here is a base plan I made - unfortunately, I don't have design software for this application. I did the best I can. I will have to try the panorama tomorrow morning - the yard is long and skinny so I don't know how well it will work.

The bed that alley cat shows is much closer to what you need--very deep--10 feet absolute minimum and 15+ even better to give room for great shrubs/small trees. The plantings won't need to be as formal as alley cat's, and you should research carefully what shrubs/trees are recommended for your area. Also, for a bed like that, you'll want some shrubs layered in front of the small trees.

Planting under a maple is a real challenge. In my area I recommend either Liriope spicata (not L. muscari) or Geranium macrorrhizum, but I don't know how they perform in Utah.

L. spicata can be a great groundcover and work in some very difficult places because it spreads by underground rhizomes. It would have no problem weaving its way around maple roots. But, it also cannot be stopped without a root barrier, so you'd need to confine it with some underground device unless you want it to be the groundcover everywhere. (I, too, do not know if it grows in Utah.)

Extra nice job on the plan and it accurately conveys a huge amount of information, mainly, how shallow your back yard is! Given what we know, I'd suggest a bed line something like this...

The red star would be the place to stand to capture the slightly overlapping photos, including the house showing up in the first and last photos.

There seems to be this idea floating around that imposing curves on any landscape space automatically improves the space. But this is not the case, A curved element that contradicts its surroundings can look awkward and out place. Radius ends to the bed is all I can really see for this space, on account of it being so shallow.

Still, we don't know anything about plantings that might be along the house foundation. I suspect that once we see the total space, the above scheme is not going to be workable either, and there might be just a central path that negotiates its way between a strip of planting along the house and a strip of planting along the perimeter wall.

As an aside, I think the number of trees planted along the back landscape wall is excessive unless the goal is to create a solid wall of green above the wall, where all these plants are growing into each other. (I'm not saying that is necessarily bad; privacy and view screening may be the primary goal.)

I question your decision to plant all of your trees in a row so tightly against the fence. They don’t have room to grow and the arrangement doesn’t appear very “natural.” Have you considered creating a grove of trees rather than a rigid row? Just a suggestion....

I tried my best with the panorama view - if I stood in the middle, there was a bulge. Note: the house faces east so the back of the house is west. It is HOT in the afternoon. The neighbors behind me have an above ground pool. Thank you all for the comments: Floral - on the outer edges of the tree, there is morning sun and filtered sun in the afternoon. If I planted currants, they would have to have morning sun as the afternoon is too hot. Lacey - if I make the bed too wide then I will have to just take up all the grass in the back yard because its narrow. Yardvark/ptreckel - I wanted a privacy screen from the above ground pool right behind my house. I didn't know what to do. The nursery suggested the spear crabapples because they are narrow and grow about 16 feet high. I have a smoke tree in the front and I like it so I planted two in the back. I thought a serviceberry would work well in the corner left corner. I have some bleeding hearts the previous owner put in the front and I was going to transplant them under the Maple tree with maybe some hostas, coral bells, foam flower. kashmir sage. A website on waterwise plants for Utah: https://conservationgardenpark.org/plants

BTW - Many thanks to everyone who are commenting - greatly appreciated! Here's the panorama looking east towards the house. I have very large shrubs - lilacs, snowball, buckthorne, cotoneaster right against the house. I don't like it but it's so hot in the afternoon that it keeps the house cooler plus the privacy. really want to have a more private yard.

Side fruit/vegetable garden. I redesigned the side yard - it was a raspberry thicket. Advertised free raspberries - people came and dug them up so now I have a 3 x 40 foot patch. I took out the grass and put in fabric with rocks and pavers. Above ground cedar garden beds with drip irrigation. Gave the fruit trees (peach/nectarine) some breathing room. I have the garden professionally pruned the last two years to keep the trees manageable. I was going to do the same on the other side of the house - keep the bed along the house but get rid of the grass and put in the rocks and pavers. I want an edible landscape so I was going to plant a Russian pomegranate, bush cherry and Chicago hardy fig. There are just huge cotoneasters on that side of the house. But my focus at the moment is the back yard.

In order to create a privacy screen at the perimeter of the backyard, it's OK to have the trees grow together in what will essentially be a pleached hedge (a hedge where its foliage canopy is raised up off the ground some feet.)

The back yard is shallow enough that it amounts to a wide hallway. Keep in mind that grass is not just another plant specimen, but is the material that you're using to make a walking path and viewing foreground. Since there are shrubs at the back of the house, it would make sense that they all be in a bed that forms a linear strip along the back of the house. With the backyard outlined by beds needing to be separated by a walking path, there seems little choice but to run the path as one would run a 3-foot wide carpet down a 6-foot wide hallway ... down its "center." It doesn't make sense to impose unrelated curves into the run of the path, and they would look out of place. The grass would curve at each end of the hallway, because the path turns ... to the patio at one end and to the side yard at the other.

At the back of the house, the large foundation shrubs seem overwhelming and engulfing to the house, and to the walking path. If any of them can achieve ten feet or more of height (by being allowed to grow) consider turning them into tree forms (by removing the lower foliage). Over time, windows could be exposed (you'll be protected by the pleached hedge at the perimeter) and those shrubs would not seem so domineering of the space. As small trees, they would look better against the house and for the path. Lower growing perennials and groundcover could fill in the lower portion of the bed (as would be the case at the backyard perimeter bed.)

Thank you very much Yardvaark! Your kind advice is greatly appreciated! I am going to make the bed the perimeter of the fence but make it straight - as you suggested - except for the maple tree. The other trees will be tall and skinny with the exception of the maple and the service berry. Thank you for the ideas for the shrubs against the house. I will have the guy from the nursery who prunes my fruit trees to take a look at them. I have been really sick since I moved into the house two years ago so I really haven't taken care of them.

Consider that the grass either does not grow well between the maple tree and the patio, or that in the future it won't, which is why I designated that area to be groundcover. If you want it to remain grass as long as possible, consider making the bed line like this ...

Around the maple, the bed is the tree's home and it looks like a stingy one if you make the bed too shallow. A deeper bed, swinging around the trunk in a circular manner, helps to emphasize the importance of the trunk/tree.

As the bed nears the left lot line, turn it into an S-curve and meet the side fence/wall at 90* for a deliberate, clean look. (The angle as you show will be a haphazard look.)

Meet the right lot line at 90*, too. But it is too close to the maple's curve to add another curve. and adding it ends up creating an out-of-character wavy pattern, making the bed line look too busy. Just bring it straight to the fence. Or, alternatively, you could bring the forward point of the maple's curve straight to the wall such that it formed an S-curve -- the same as the opposite (left) end of the bed (like the dashed red line.)

If that's a Norway Maple, forget about growing much under it. Believe me, I've tried. The bigger they get, the more difficult it is. I can't hardly get weeds to grow under my really big ones. You can do planters around it though. Could grow some shade tolerant herbs or colorful plants for a fun view. A little farther out where you get some sun you might be able to get some of the smaller berry bushes bred for growing in pots to grow. Would have to be irrigated in UT.

Smoke trees are very aggressive and will have multiple trunks if you let them. They will fast fill in those spots and in fact you are going to have a hard time getting them to not warp the fence they are so close.

Yarkvaark - thank you for your advice. I will show this drawing to the landscape guy. I was thinking of taking all the grass out under the tree but then that leaves even less potty room for the dog. I am enclosing the plan a local nursery made for me. Its too much but I did do the right (north) side yard. Her flowerbed in the back was similar to yours by getting rid of the grass under the tree. The plants she selected for the back would take too long to grow and/or not tall enough to block the pool. The L in the right corner was a trellis made out of metal fencing sections and then cover the area with pavers or flagstones with gravel. Getting rid of the grass on the right corner would be hard because of the dog. Pinkmountain - thank you for your comments. I have a smoke tree in the front of my house - that does need some pruning. The ones I planted in the back are 9 feet and so the trunk are taller than the one in the front. I plan on trying to keep them going upward. May have to do a lot of pruning.... I am not sure what kind of maple it is. I do have a lot of grass growing under it - the sun gets under it rising in the east. I do have an irrigation system which is a must here in the great basin area. I was thinking of hostas, bleeding hearts (transplanted from the front yard) - I will look for dry shade, drought tolerant plants.

Thank you for all your
input. I finished my back fence landscaping. I think it turned out well. From
left to right....autumn brilliance service berry, black tower elderberry, ivory
spear crab apple (on each side of the middle tree, I am going to put purple
pillar rose of sharon next season), black tower elderberry, jostaberry,
hostas/astilbe, red currants and a rose of sharon that was transplanted from
the front yard. I also planted daffodils, hyacinths and tulips in the beds. I'm excited to see all the spring flowers next near.