The Southeast Region invites you to attend our fall rendezvous, to be held this October 25th in Cary/Raleigh, North Carolina. The day will begin with a tour of Doug Register’s private garden followed by lunch and browsing time at the beautiful JC Raulson Arboretum. The rendezvous concludes with an afternoon at Juniper Level Botanical Garden, home to acres of exotic and varied plantings, spectacular crevice gardens, wonderful woodland gardens, and Tony Avent’s world famous Plant Delights nursery. There will also be a silent auction. Be sure to submit your registration by the extended deadline of October 18!

Here's a bit more about each garden:

Doug Register’s Garden is located in the Prestonwood section of Cary, where he and his wife have lived since the 1990s. Doug has a passion for conifers and maples, to the point that he established a separate garden near Sparta in the North Carolina mountains because he ran out of space at his home address. Doug maximizes his available space by growing many trees in containers and by carefully pruning others. He also enjoys experimenting with bonsai techniques. The variety of growing methods, pruning, and artful placement of container plants results not only in a beautiful garden but an interesting one as well.

JC Raulston Arboretum is an easy 20-minute drive from Doug’s garden, and it is here that we’ll gather for lunch and spend an hour or two wandering JCRA’s 56 acres. JCRA is an ACS Reference Garden, so you will see plenty of conifers set among plants, trees, and shrubs of great variety. In particular, you’ll want to take note of the wonderful grove of dwarf Pinus taeda in addition to the ones in front of the lath house on the Great Lawn. This garden is compact but not small, so you will find plenty of places to wander and wonder in the time we have here.

Juniper Level Botanic Garden is about a 30-minute drive from JCRA, but it’s a lot like entering an entirely different world. As it says on their website (juniperlevelbotanicgarden.org): “Juniper Level Botanic Garden’s 28-acre campus is filled with more than 27,000 taxa of plants, including native perennials, exotic plants, rare delights, and an array of incredible and unusual specimen trees and shrubs you won’t see anywhere else in the world.” Included among those are a goodly number of conifers from large, mature specimens to crevice garden miniatures. And speaking of crevice gardens, there are hundreds of feet of those in addition to more traditional rock gardens and just plain old dirt gardens. In fact, there are 8 acres of display gardens of all varieties, from deep shade to full sun and water gardens from sunny to shady, too. And in the midst of it all is world-famous Plant Delights Nursery with plants gleaned from Tony Avent’s plant explorations around the world and his extensive plant breeding programs.

So come join us on October 25th for the Southeast Region’s Fall Rendezvous! It’ll be a day to remember among your fellow conifer lovers in gorgeous gardens and with the chance to bring home something wonderful for your garden at the perfect time for planting. The cost is $50 and includes lunch. Addresses and timeline will be sent to all who register. We hope to see you there

Registration Information:

Date: Saturday, October 25, 2025
Registration: $50.00/person and includes lunch + the option to purchase a t-shirt for $25 each
Registration has been extended to October 18; t-shirt deadline remains as October 11.
Sign up here

For further information, contact Sandy Horn at: [email protected]