Aesthetics are a very subjective issue and everyone will have their own interpretation. Personally, I find the house w/ deck very charming and find nothing jarring about any of the paint colors. But that's just me :-) And too, unless the house is painted a very unnatural color (it's hard to disguise a purple house!), selecting plants that accent or compliment the paint color will go along way in pulling the house and garden together. What does grate on me visually is the block wall and bed edging. And this again is a very personal viewpoint, but unless it is made of the higher end concrete blocks (that actually look more like natural stone), they always strike me as cheap and cheesy looking. Landscape designers in my area have a rather derogatory name for them :-)) I realize it may be a big effort and expense to replace, so I'd focus on disguising it with plantings as well as possible. Something soft and cascading at the edge of the rounded bed adjacent to the drive. And do you have to keep those along the bed edge in front of the deck, etc? Even if this is a raised planting area, extending the bed out slightly so it is just a gentle slope with no block edging would look better. And you would avoid the conflict of too many different materials with the pond/waterfall. And regarding the pond/waterfall.....previous comments apply. It looks very unnatural in its current presentation. I'd consider bring in some (3-5) pretty good sized landscape boulders and removing or relocating many of the smaller river rocks. Leave some open areas and insert some evergeen plants - small shrubs or dwarf conifers. A grass or two always looks good with a water feature, also. Soldiering the shrubs along the front of the deck only draws attention to it and isolates it rather than blending it into the landscape. A mix of a few larger, staggered plantings will soften the area and create less of linear focus. Repeating some of the same plants around the side and the waterfall will provide some continuity to the front beds as well. And my last comment applies to the sloped area along the drive. That's got to be a bear to mow and maintain and lawn on such a steep slope usually doesn't do well - I know it's winter now but it does look like it's suffering. I'd be inclined to remove all the sod on the slope and maintain lawn only on the flatter top portion of the yard. Again, a couple of good sized boulders (well implanted in the ground) and accented with some low maintenance groundcovers would improve this area a lot. Or you could go with (or add in) some other shrubby material and seasonal color. I'd take this all along the drive to the street, too. In zone 7, you have some pretty wide options of plant material, including a lot of evergreen shrubs, which would provide increased winter interest and give the garden more of a year round appeal. Do some planning now and visit your favorite garden center in early spring to make some plant choices.

A photo would help a lot.

Glenda, I also had to tie my tall corn for the past 2 years. I live in a windy valley and have corn damage every year. I dont grow a lot of corn, only had about 150 stalks of Tendertreat. Last year I had about the same amount of Merrit corn, both were tied with tee post and binder twine, much like Soonergrandmom stated. It is a lot of trouble. I keep telling my self "NO MORE CORN", but my Early Sun Glow which was planted after the potato harvest looks good and will be harvested soon, by me or the worms. I think the sun glow is easier to grow but it is not near as pretty as the tall corn. Larry

what a great laugh after work, i love this!!!