RE: Creating bedding areas
Invasive weeds--you know, the kind that are illegal to plant--seem to be the best cover plants for deer. Around here, mulit-flora rose is the preferred illegal, invasive weed.
Deer love it. They seem to glide right through the stuff, they also eat it like crazy and they KNOW that any hunter approaching them will be making a lot of noise due to getting stuck and ripped apart by the briars.
My advice is to maintain trails WHERE YOU WANT THEM by trimming the bushes so that you can approach your stand silently, without leaving your scent on them.