The October 2012 issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine features the garden of Edmonds resident Darlene Newquist

According to Newquist, the multiple-page feature came about after her home was included on the Edmonds Garden Tour in 2010.  “A week or so later I got a letter from a woman who said she had been on the tour, wrote for Better Homes and Gardens and had my garden been published nationally?” Newquist explained.  The writer, Loralee Wenger, asked Newquist to contact her and she drafted a proposal for the magazine.

Better Homes and Gardens eventually accepted Wenger’s article — focused on the fall color in maple trees — and a photo shoot was scheduled in Newquist’s garden for fall 2011.

Wenger stayed in touch with Newquist to determine when the maples would be ready for the photo shoot. “It takes a certain number of very cold nights to get the sugars in the leaves to bring about the color change,” Newquist noted. The photos were taken Oct. 26 and 27. “The art director came from Iowa and the photographer came from Portland with a helper,” Newquist added.

Wenger also showed up “with a van full of potted plants with fall color to fill in places that might need it. We didn’t use any of them.  At the end of the shoot she said I could have any of them I wanted.  She had them staged in my driveway so they could be snapped up to fill in somewhere at any time.  I took a blueberry plant only but it was tempting to take a bunch of things,” Newquist recalled.

“It was a very interesting experience,” she added. “They wanted the early morning light so were here VERY early in the mornings and took planned shots early but then worked the rest of the day as well.  Nice folk, and it was enlightening to watch them work.”