Thanks for sharing your flower gardens with us! It’s incredible to see some of the beautiful plants and landscapes North Shore Bank employees have nurtured.

“My love of flowers and gardening come from my dad, who was an avid gardener and lover of all things that grow,” says Howard-Suamico teller Roberta Strazishar. “I planted my first garden 30 years ago, when I purchased my first home in the Village of Howard, and I haven’t stopped planting since. I enjoy painting a pallet of growing color with perennial and annual flowers that include plenty of varieties that attract butterflies and birds, including hummers.”

The flowers above are Luna Red hardy hibiscus, Bright Eyes and Forever Pink tall phlox, Fantasia hardy hibiscus, black-eyed Susans, David tall white phlox, Candy Crush tall phlox, and the Forever Pink again with a female Eastern Tiger swallowtail butterfly alighting on them.

“Digging in the dirt helps me to feel connected to the earth,” Roberta says. “Gardening draws me closer to nature and brings me a sense of calm and peace. Though my life is busy with a full-time job and family, I spend every spare minute I can in my gardens.”

“While we do have lots of flowers such as cone flowers, buttercups, black-eyed Susans, phlox, geraniums, and Stella D’Oro daylilies (to name a few), and flowering bushes such as hydrangea, our flower garden is also about incorporating items as garden art,” says human resources rep Cheryl Fregoso, who shared the photos above. “I’m the ‘designer,’ and my husband likes ‘to play in the dirt’ as the groundskeeper. We make a good team! We were proud to be one of the Beautification Award winners designated by the City of West Allis in 2016.” Wow — congratulations, Cheryl!

“I moved to Milwaukee four years ago,” says debit card and ATM processing manager Ericka Juskiewicz, who sent in the four photos above. “We purchased a home with 15 years of yard overgrowth that we have been slowly cleaning out. We ‘found’ all these flowers the second year of cleaning out the beds. The day lilies are actually specialty hybrids, and there are also a bleeding heart bush and hydrangeas.”

“This isn’t my full garden, but these particular flowers sure were beautiful on Saturday morning when they attracted this guy!” says AVP and commercial loan servicing manager Cheryl Lang of her tall phlox. “He must have been feeling very photogenic — he let me capture his exquisiteness from about six inches away!”

These beauties grace the patio steps commercial loan servicing analyst Theresa Krznarich’s house. She says, “The only ones I know are the bright pink geraniums. I’m not familiar with the names of the others, but they sure grew nice this summer!”

And as for this pot, currently beautifying the exterior of the Green Bay East branch, universal banker Kari Tuyls says, “It’s not a garden, but it very well could be!” Indeed!