Rosemary’s garden grows bright in Port Neches

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April 27, 2009

By Darragh Doiron The Port Arthur News Mon Apr 27, 2009, 11:16 AM CDT

Rosemary Raines

Community connection: Gardener, card player

Fast fact: She says her garden is her therapy.

Quick Quote: “As the garden grows, so does the gardener.” — from a stone in Rosemary Raines’ garden

PORT NECHES — Considering her name is Rosemary, there’s relatively little of the fragrant herb in her Port Neches garden.

One is a trimmed topiary. The other is a bush that “just went wild,” Rosemary Raines said.

What she really loves is color, bursting from two lush varieties of bougainvillea, geranium and impatiens that have bloomed way past their scheduled time.

She said she’s extra proud of something that almost no one else has, made from something that almost everyone has in Southeast Texas. Through seasons of snipping and grooming, Raines has trained an azalea tree that stands nearly as tall as she does.

“I saw it in “Southern Living,” she said.

After the magazine entry inspired her, she got to work on the pruning.

Her husband, Cal, who was a co-owner of Dryden’s department store, nominated his wife as a Senior on the Go because of her “beautiful yard.”

She said she keeps telling him that there are plenty of other yards with even more bloom in them, but she enjoys the work and the bountiful rewards.

“It’s my physical therapy,” she said. “I show people photos of the garden and they say, ‘Your physical therapy is working.’ ”

She said she also works out to stay active.

“I don’t want to get to where I can’t move around,” Raines said.

In years past, Raines was a member of the Del Mar Garden Club. Now she’s in a golf group that plays cards and plays at United Board of Missions games days.

“Mostly we just take care of our homes and our husbands,” she said.

Raines is anticipating her lilies to open up soon. They’re an unusual shrimp color and she said she doesn’t even know the variety name. They were a “freebie” that became prolific.

“A friend gave me about 13 of them and I’ve given away about 200,” she said.

To nominate a Senior on the Go, call Darragh Doiron at 721-2430.

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