What Is the North Georgia Daylily Society and What Does Membership Offer?

The North Georgia Daylily Society (NGDS) is a garden club for people who grow or want to grow daylilies (Hemerocallis) in and around North Georgia. It describes itself as "a welcoming community of garden enthusiasts who share a love for daylilies," and its value to a prospective member comes down to three things: learning from experienced growers and hybridizers, getting access to unusual and award-winning plants, and joining organized events such as meetings, garden tours, plant sales, and annual shows. If you already grow daylilies, want to start, or are interested in hybridizing, the club is aimed at you; if you are looking for a general-purpose gardening or landscaping group, its focus is narrower than that.

Who NGDS serves

The club's own framing is social as much as horticultural: members "grow not only beautiful gardens—but lasting friendships." In practice that means the organization is built around shared growing experience rather than professional services. The site's stated reasons to join are a useful summary of who it fits:

• Learn from experienced growers and hybridizers
• Discover unique and award-winning daylilies
• Enjoy garden tours, plant sales, and special events
• Connect with others who share your passion for gardening

If none of those four apply to you, membership is unlikely to be worth it. If two or more do, the club's calendar and show history suggest there is regular activity to plug into.

What membership offers

Learning and plants

The two most concrete benefits are access to growers who already know what performs in the region, and to daylily cultivars that are not typically sitting on a big-box nursery shelf. Hybridizers within a club are often the source of named introductions and show-quality plants, and club plant sales are a common way those plants change hands. The site lists "Members Gardens & Nurseries" as a section, which indicates member gardens are treated as a resource other members can visit or learn from.

Events and shows

NGDS maintains a "Calendar of Club Meetings" and an "Important Dates to Remember" page, plus a long record of annual daylily shows. The show archive runs from 2009 through 2019, with a virtual show and blog in 2020, and a "2026 Daylily Show and Flower Sale" listed. That continuity is the clearest evidence that the club holds recurring public events rather than meeting only informally.

Affiliated membership

The site includes a "Join NGDS / AHS" page and a separate "Special Opportunity to Join AHS" item. AHS is the American Hemerocallis Society, the national daylily organization, so NGDS membership is structured alongside a national affiliation rather than standing alone. If you want show rules, cultivar registration information, or a national network, that affiliation is the reason to care; if you only want local garden friends, it matters less.

How to join and where to find details

The site does not publish dues, meeting locations, or a signup form in the material available here, so the reliable path is through the club's own pages:

1. Open the "Join NGDS / AHS" page for membership instructions and any current AHS joining opportunity.
2. Check "Calendar of Club Meetings" and "Important Dates to Remember" to see when and where the next meeting or event falls before committing.
3. Use "Contact Us" if the join page does not answer a specific question such as dues, meeting format, or whether guests can attend a meeting first.
4. Check the club's Facebook page, facebook.com/NorthGaDaylily, for current announcements, since club sites are often updated less frequently than social pages.

A reasonable approach for a first-timer is to attend one meeting or the annual show and flower sale as a guest before joining, then decide based on whether the meeting format and the people suit you. The show and sale is also the lowest-commitment way to see the quality of plants members grow.

Common questions

Is this the same as a nursery or a plant seller? No. NGDS is a membership society. It lists member gardens and nurseries as a resource and runs plant sales, but it is not itself a retail business.

Do I need to already grow daylilies? The club's stated audience is garden enthusiasts generally, and its benefits include learning from experienced growers, which implies beginners are welcome. Nothing on the site sets a growing-experience requirement.

What if I'm outside North Georgia? The club is regionally named and its meetings and garden tours are local. If you are far away, the AHS affiliation is the more useful route, since it connects to the national organization rather than a local meeting schedule.

How much does it cost? Dues are not stated in the available site content, so treat cost as something to confirm on the "Join NGDS / AHS" page or by contacting the club directly rather than assuming it is free.