Yardvaark said "Whatever you do ... whatever lines you make, you must make some simple, clean artistic geometry out of them. If you want more lawn on the west side, you can do it ... but adjust the lines to reflect simplicity, s m o o t h n e s s and the boundaries of nearby objects." I concur. Yard and bed edges that are squiggly remind me of group of people all talking over each other with no one saying anything of importance. It's confusing, distracting, and generally unpleasant. There is also the element of scale, the balance of area size for plants to that allotted for yard. I like to size the plant area to something no less than half the area of the sum of lawn and any hardscape devoted to people. And the plant area should not be more than twice the 'people' area. The size of landscape elements should be compatible with the overall size. For large areas use at least some larger shrubs, trees, walks. and decks. For smaller areas, scale down everything. To begin this discussion I selected a single objective you gave, that of making "the yard look deeper instead of a shallow and wide rectangle". There are an infinite number of desirable arrangements you might choose. In the end you may want to discard this idea in favor of developing some other idea. I admit I had my own motive in selecting that one goal for review. Landscaping is a blend of science and art. Years ago on this forum there were regular participants that made their living doing landscape design along with a host of others that had long studied the academic principles involved. I miss those discussions we had. The implementation of "making the yard look deeper instead of a shallow and wide rectangle" could have led to such a discussion even though it may of had limited benefit to the homeowner.

Clay swells when wet and shrinks when dry, explaining the cracks. Your clay is lacking in vegetative matter which would change your soils structure and provide the spaces required for oxygen and water. It will take a year or two but you can make your soil into good garden soil. Don't try and amend the hole for the plant you want to plant at the moment. Bite the bullet and buy truck loads of municipal waste compost. It is the cheapest and you are better off with lots of the cheap stuff than a meager amount of bagged high priced compost. Do your whole yard at once. You should only work your soil when the moisture content is right. This means watering a couple of days in advance of digging. This year you should get enough compost to cover your whole yard to at least 6 inches, and with the soil moisture ready rototill it in. From now on every year you will only need to apply about 3 inches as a mulch to the top of the soil and the soil life will work it into the soil. Soon you will be bragging about how good your soil is and how easy it is to work. Al

That is a pretty amazing transformation. You did a lot of hauling in and out of materials. Its nice you got most of it for free from CL and Freecycle. Hope you have many more good finds. Billie

Garden gal: I appreciate the feedback, and you're right, I should've been clearer. I guess I chose the landscape design board rather than the other regional planting forums because I am not necessarily opposed to redoing/reconfiguring the layout currently. And while I do like the main deck and would like to keep it in future plans (though not opposed to the "cutout" idea above from yardvaark), I believe that the wrap-around Boardwalk was the previous owner's solution to that "other" back door, as a way to provide a path between the main deck and that door. I actually have considered meeting with a local landscape architect in order to come up with some ideas for design. Ultimately, the plan is to do a full backyard landscape design over the next few years, complete with pergola, kitchen with built-in BBQ, etc. Obviously, we would definitely need a landscape architect in order to accomplish that task. However, in the meantime, I was hoping to get some kind of idea of how to make the existing design look halfway decent and not simply be empty flower beds. Then, as the rest of the backyard design takes place over the next few years, incorporate the little bit that I had done now upon moving in with any future plans we decide upon.