180 Arbor Lane

Jackie Ots

Our first July Garden of the Month winner is a top-to-bottom delight. From the charming second-story window boxes to the ribbons of color below that welcome visitors up the walk to the front porch, Jackie Ots’ eye for design is just the right touch at 180 Arbor Lane.

Jackie is just the second owner of the home and has made it her own in the six years she has lived there. After working 12-hour shifts as a nurse practitioner, she enjoys coming home and putting her creativity, farm girl work ethic and design classes to use, inside and outside her house.

Her flower color scheme of choice — reds and pinks — is repeated in window boxes, a hanging basket and ground plantings. Such a tasteful display, and those begonias and impatiens sure do pop against the lush green of the shrubs, the manicured lawn and the sweet potato vines. It’s both deceptively simple and impeccably done.

We also love that Jackie has an appreciation of the home’s late original owner, keeping some of her backyard plantings, and of the other lovely yards in her neighborhood. That’s what Allouez is all about.

Congratulations, Jackie. You have curb appeal in spades!

724 Chantilly Rue

Doug and Shari Hight

Doug and Shari Hight’s yard is beautiful any way you look at it, and lucky for all of us, that means a corner lot that shares the front, back and side gardens with all who pass by.

Doug and Shari are not just our second Garden of the Month winners for July, this is also the second time they’ve been honored for their work at 724 Chantilly Rue. They previously won in 2010.

They consider Allouez a special place and want the home they’ve lived at for 30 years to reflect that. They work as a team, with Shari doing all the pretty-in-pink petunias, mandevillas and other annuals and Doug manicuring the more than 30 boxwoods that give the gardens such grand structure. Shari’s dad owned a landscaping business in Manitowoc, so she’s lovingly carrying on his passion.

Congratulations! Thanks for taking so much pride in calling Allouez home — and for the sweeping views, too!