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Will the summer regional meeting in Raleigh, NC, be déjà vu all over again for those of you who came to the 2005 Fall Festival? Don't bet on it! Sure, the host Raleigh Hemerocallis Club will use the same Holiday Inn as regional headquarters. Once again all Friday events will be in the spacious Wake Office Park. There will be two well-known speakers. The open botanic garden from last fall will return as part of the official garden tour. As usual, clinics and workshops will be scheduled. That is pretty much where the similarities end. Just look at what else is in store!

Regional events kick-off on Friday, June 16, with Exhibition Judges Clinics II and III starting at 1 p.m. in the Wake Office Park. General registration will be in the hotel from 3 to 5 p.m. and then in the Wake Office Park from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Dinner will be on your own with a social hour from 6:30 to 7:30. At 7:30 a program will be presented by Pam Beck, a noted freelance garden writer, photographer, and popular lecturer. She has regularly published articles in Carolina Gardener Magazine since 1993. Pam teaches residential landscaping. She is also a local garden scout for Better Homes and Gardens Magazine and currently serves on the board of advisors of the JC Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh, NC. Following her program there will be a plant auction. Please submit names, and images if possible, of live or silent auction cultivars with average list value $20 or more to Wanda Quinn, wquinn@nortel.com.

Late registration will be from 7 to 7:30 a.m. Saturday morning with the buses leaving promptly at 7:30 for the garden tour. Although Raleigh has been the site of more summer regional meetings than any other location in Region 15's history, this is the first time hosting in a decade -- so most of the gardens will be new to you. Glenn and Susan Grigg have been on iris tours in the past but have 'seen the light' and are now becoming avid daylily collectors, growing some of the newest and best from our region. Jim and Jane Sovine have discovered the 'plus' of hurricanes -- more sun for growing quality daylilies. The garden of Bobby and Gretchen Baxter has undergone extensive renovation just for this tour and contains many newer cultivars from Bobby's hybridizing program as well as others from around the region and country. If you missed getting to the Juniper Level Botanic Garden when it was open last fall, you will be pleased to find it on the official tour -- a garden where the daylilies become the 'companions.' It is rarely open to the public. One of the featured speakers, Pam Beck, will give guided mini-tours of this large garden. Lunch will be served at the Golden Corral.

Saturday evening at the hotel, there will be a social hour followed by the awards banquet. A short business meeting will precede the keynote speaker -- the dynamic and entertaining Melanie Mason from New York. Melanie hybridizes northern hardy, zone 4 daylilies on a working 385 acre farm -- a two-part operation where she and her husband raise both registered Angus cattle and daylilies. Melanie's award-winning daylilies occupy about an acre surrounding the farmhouse. She grows over 1300 registered cultivars as well as the seedlings from her hybridizing program. She has served as an AHS director from Region 4 and has held a number of key national committee assignments over the years.

If you think your garden visiting is over on Saturday, the Raleigh club has a 'bonus' garden for you on your way home on Sunday. Lakeview Daylily Farm of Noel, Molly, and Erin Weston will host the Garden Judges. Workshop II plus offer a complimentary continental breakfast and even a mini-tour of their koi operation. Sign up at the registration desk if interested. A commercial garden, they will also be open for sales that Sunday. There is a limit of 150 attendees based upon banquet facilities so please do not wait until the last minute to submit your registration fee. The Raleigh Hemerocallis Club looks forward to seeing many old friends and many first-timers to regional events.