Helen Yoest and I have the happy job of spreading the news about great gardeners and their gardens. I do it on the local level, and Yoest has dedicated herself to bringing local gardens to national attention.

Yoest is a representative for the Garden Conservancy's Open Days Tour and is a member of the board at the JC Raulston Arboretum and maintenance team leader of its winter garden. She is also a scout and field editor for Meredith Corp. -- known for Better Homes & Gardens and its many special interest mags (Country Gardens, Perennial Magazine, Nature's Garden and so forth).

In her spare time, she raises three children and runs her own garden consulting business, GardensGardens and Tiger Lily's garden designs.

When asked how she finds the time to do it all, Yoest says, "I love all gardens and gardeners. We are a passionate group of people."

In April, I ran into Yoest at a wine tasting at the Little Herb House in Raleigh. I was absorbed in the story of the short history of the Zimmerman Vineyard, in the rolling hills between Asheboro and Thomasville, when the force of nature that is Helen Yoest sat down beside me.

She placed her ever-present camera next to mine on the chair between us, and for a couple of minutes we sipped Chardonnay and reveled in the sights and scents of the herb garden.

But Yoest was there on business. Before my second sip of a full-bodied red, she grabbed her camera and called to our hostess, Lisa Treadaway, to tiptoe through the herb garden with her.

"Come with us, Carol," Treadaway said. And that's how I learned the differences in the way Yoest and I do our work.

The stories begin

I stroll through a garden for a few minutes, interview the gardener and take a few pictures to remind me what I want to tell readers. I write my impressions down as soon after the visit as possible, spend a week or two editing and tweaking, hand it over to my editors and then call the next name on my to-meet list.

It takes about three weeks from the time I visit until you see the garden in print.

For Yoest, the process takes longer. As a scout and field editor, she not only locates potentially publication-worthy gardens, she also shoots about 50 photos of the landscape from every angle, draws a plot plan and writes a proposal to sell the garden to her editors and art directors.

Working as a scout sounds like fun. You talk to people about gardens, go on garden tours, visit garden centers and discuss gardeners, and locate gardens recommended by designers and architects. When one of her recommendations is selected by a magazine art director or editor, they rely on Yoest to "be their eyes when they can't be here."

Art directors want near perfection in their photo spreads, and that's where Yoest shines. For example, when the massive herb garden at the Little Herb House is in its glory, it's spectacular -- and enormous. The day of the wine tasting, Yoest was there to plan the site for a scaled-down version so readers can see how herb gardens can fit into smaller landscapes stylishly.

Treadaway was concerned about the expense of building yet another garden on her already fully functioning herb farm.

Yoest's answer was that it is her job as field editor to prop and style the shots -- she also provides names for all the plants, the sources of materials used and the manuscript -- so she would enlist Charles Luck Stone Center to provide the stone and labor to build the new little herb garden.

"They're very happy to source it for us for mention in a national magazine," Yoest said. "It's a win-win situation."

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