Meetings

March 20 Meeting: Let's Talk About Avocados

Two of our chapter's most prominent avocado experts, Julie Frink and Denny Luby, will be teaming up to tell us everything they can think of about avocados. This will be Julie's 5th time giving an avocado presentation to our chapter and it will be the 3rd time Denny will be joining her. 

Julie is a past OC CRFG chapter chair. She managed to squeeze 40 avocado varieties into her front and back yards and for 28 years volunteered in the avocado variety collection at the UC South Coast Research & Extension center (SCREC) in Irvine. Every year Julie donates lots of grafted avocado trees to our annual plant sale.

Denny joined CRFG in 1998 after seeing a cherimoya for the first time at the CRFG booth at the Orange County Fair.  In 2004, he became the Green Scene chair, running our annual plant sale at the Fullerton Arboretum for many years. Denny has over 140 different fruiting plants in his yard. He volunteered with Julie for many years in the avocado collection at SCREC.

Denny and Julie are both accomplished grafters and are often called on to demonstrate grafting techniques at our annual grafting workshops held each January. Both also contributed to the OC CRFG Grafting DVD (now available on YouTube, see bottom of page for links.)

Denny and Julie will answer questions, tell avocado stories and explain how to grow avocados successfully at home. Come learn about the different avocado races, growth habits, grafted trees vs seedlings and so much more.

To get to know our speakers before the meeting, take a tour of Julie's yard in Episode #5 of CRFG's Let's Find Out series and a tour of Denny's yard in Episode #9.

This meeting can be attended in person and on Zoom:
Thursday 3/20, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Red Hill Lutheran Church
13200 Red Hill Ave, Tustin, CA 92780

Click here for a Google Map. We meet in the CLC Fellowship Hall.

Join the meeting on Zoom at 7:00 pm (PST) with the following link: 
Attendees are encouraged to bring fresh fruit from their garden and other snacks to share at the tasting table.

Donations to the opportunity drawing are also appreciated.
Denny Luby discussing avocados with host Rick Yessayian
in Let's Find Out Episode #9

Julie Frink at the 2008 Festival of Fruit designated as the
'Year of the Avocado'


For more information contact Jeff Warner 


Recent Past Meetings & Events

February 20 Meeting: Highlights of My Trees: Flowers and Fruits

Join us for a virtual tour of Don Winterstein's renowned orchard in the utility easement behind his backyard. 

In recent years Don has published about 40 articles on his fruit trees in the CRFG Fruit Gardener magazine. For tonight’s presentation he’s selected his prettiest and most interesting pictures from those articles. They cover 30 different kinds of fruit. The objective of the talk is to celebrate fruit growing in Orange County. Sit back and enjoy the diversity and the beauty!

Don Winterstein has had a lifelong interest in plants and gardening, but he got serious after retiring from a career in seismological research in 1999, when he got access to the large (by suburban standards) utility easement area. This became his garden, over SoCal Edison’s dead body, so to speak. Soon after, he joined the Orange County Chapter of CRFG and has been happily growing a wide variety of fruit trees in that big garden ever since. 

Don has been active in Chapter activities over that period, serving as chairman for a term and coordinating the Chapter’s plant sales for about fourteen years, the first four under the leadership of Denny Luby and the rest with Denny as second in command. He has also propagated hundreds of fruit trees for donation to the Chapter’s plant sale.



Don Winterstein shared his homegrown dragon fruit with attendees at the OC CRFG meeting last September
(Photo credit: Joan Day)


*** The OC CRFG Grafting DVD is now available to watch on our YouTube channel ***

 Five OC CRFG members demonstrate methods they have used with success for grafting, air-layering and clonal propagation.

Click here for the full video.