If you want a small tree at the right end of bed (near corner) then putting in a Hydrangea that's NOT a tree, won't work. You'll need to find another place for it. Earlier I recommended PG Hydrangea which can be grown as a small tree. Burning Bush, common Lilac or Philadelphus coronaria are other large shrubs that make good small, multi-trunk trees. For planting a large groundcover bed, you'd want to arrange plants in rows with the leading row in line with the front edge of the bed, but set back a uniform distance from it. Usually, the same spacing between plants works well as the front set back distance... so let's say for Hosta, 18". Then space them 18" apart in the row. 18" Behind that row is another row laid out in the same manner, except that you would place these plants not directly behind the first row, but offset them so that they are staggered relative to it. Continue the process until you have reached the back of the bed and filled it up. Since you are planting around trees, just don't place a Hosta where the tree is. You can come close, but not so close that you are struggling with tree roots (the tree being the Dogwood) as you don't want to disturb its ability to grow. When the Hosta grow, they will nestle around the tree trunks just fine. Though you PLAN the planting beginning with the first row, you'd actually install plants beginning with the last and work your way backward so you are not crushing installed Hosta as you plant more. That's the manner in which you'd approach laying out a normal large bed. Now let me contradict that. If your bed is only 4' deep from front to back, the above instructions would only allow you to place 2 rows in the bed. That'd work OK, but if you have sufficient Hosta and want a full look more quickly, keep the plant spacing the same, but adjust the row spacing so that you can fit in 3 rows...say each being 12" apart. (Spacing would now be 18" o.c. x 12" rows.) Whether you install whole Hosta clumps or split them up is a factor of How many you need vs. how many you have available. Split them if you're going to need a lot of Hosta or if the clumps are so huge they just need splitting.

When plants are dug up to be transplanted, they will droop due to lack of water. Trim the leaves to make up for the loss of water to the root system. Trim them about half way down. In about a week they will show signs of recovery and they will begin to grow. Expect some yellowing of outside leaves, this is normal.When they begin to grow you can fertilize them. Nice flower beds. Good luck. Dot

I think it could be "modernized" very easily because of the squared tubing instead of round, just by changing the bedding to something like, well, most of C&B's stock. ;-) One nice thing about it is that it could be taken several different directions - cottagey, country, modern - depending on the textiles and other furniture in the room. However, I am extremely doubtful about how well it would go with other furniture with Queen Anne legs (the cherry part is fine) if you do go more modern with it. The posts are removable on a lot of four-poster beds, check to see if yours is like that; that might reduce the fussy factor you seem to be objecting to. FWIW, if you're looking to revamp the entire room, depending on your local market and what the bed is made of (real cherry trumps cherry finish) you can probably sell the four-poster for around the same price as the iron one so you'd pretty much break even. Just for laughs I checked your local CL and found someone looking for a queen size four-poster - don't know if cherry is dark enough for them but you might ask. Here's the ad: "Wanting to buy 4 Post Queen Sized bed--dark wood - $250" For me, a spare room would be an extremely low priority unless I had finished the rest of the house first, but I don't know where you are in your decorating process.

Just looking at the beds I vote for the iron. We just got our WA (yale) bed a few months ago and are very happy with the looks and quality.