Thanks for the input, folks. I spent all day driving from store to store. I would have gone with cedar, but all I could find was the finely shredded variety. That just wouldn't work in this spot. So I went with $6.97/bag course brown rubber mulch from Walmart. It looks just like the $12/bag stuff from Lowes and the $9/bag stuff currently on sale at Home Depot. To keep it contained, I bought a mess of pavers to use as edging front and back. I'll run the mulch up to the greenhouse on the left and the old shed on the right, so hopefully it comes out looking nice and clean. I still have to build up and level out the surrounding area with topsoil (up to 24 bags so far, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper than filling low spots with $$$ mulch). The new topsoil will be covered with another layer or two of weed cloth. Between that and the pavers, the mulch should hopefully stay put and not go walk-about throughout the rest of the yard. That should also make it easier to remove should we decide to replace it with something else. I'll post pictures when I'm done (hopefully tomorrow).

I have a gallery wall because I have too much art to display any other way. It is much more eclectic than any of the above inspiration pics, as it includes photos, paintings, wood-block prints, and a wood-burned piece, in a variety of colors and sizes (from 4"x4" to 30"x36"). There are white, wood, black, and gold frames. I laid everything out digitally before hanging, and what I found was that the key was balance. My two white frames are at opposite ends of the display, wood frames are scattered throughout, etc. I tried to balance colors as well, so for example red is scattered throughout. You want to balance the visual weight of things, which can be affected by the composition, color, and the presence of a mat. It's definitely harder to make a gallery wall work when you have a mix of pieces. And I'm sure some people would think my wall is too chaotic, but it pleases me.

Your container didn't look all that deep. How deep is it? How wide is it? When I want to compose a container's plants, I find it helpful to do it electronically first. I get online pictures of all the possible plants, then combine them in various ways so I can see approximately what they would look like. I never buy any hostas at local nurseries because I know they don't screen for the HVX virus. I only buy from trusted online vendors. If you want to know which vendors those are, there are numerous posts on this forum naming names. So don't consider yourself limited to the minis your local nursery has. If you bought infected plants, it doesn't necessarily show up right away, so I would not put those minis you bought in the ground. Put them in other pots. The reason is, if any of those minis are infected and later show symptoms of HVX, the very soil you plant them in is now infected and you can't plant any hostas there for years and years. I have both Cameo and Pure Heart. They are both short and tiny. I looked over your hostas and I think a nice order in your container would be Church Mouse on one end, Pure Heart in the middle, and Cameo on the other end. The other two hostas would look beautiful in the same large container with an accent plant such as Bleeding Heart or a calibrachoa.

I currently have window boxes which I love. Be aware they are expensive to maintain. In my location (Massachusetts) I have 3 seasons that I need plant material for the window boxes. I had wood ones for years painted black to match shutters. Last year I decided to bite the bullet and went with the self-watering pvc boxes. I have 3 3footers and the pansies for spring cost $185.