Meet our 2026 Festival of Fruit Garden Tour Hosts—local experts sharing their rare fruit gardens and farms with the community.  Don’t forget to check out our Residential Garden Tours and see where you will be traveling as our hosts guide you through their home hardens and farms.

The late great Eunice Messner, when she and I were members of the OC Organic Gardening Club early this century, was instrumental in persuading me to join CRFG.  From my early years at CRFG until recently, when I became physically unable to do the work, I coordinated or helped coordinate the OC Chapter’s annual plant sales.  This included also growing plants for the sales.  Along the way Elke Kuhl, the Chapter newsletter editor, encouraged me to write articles on my fruit trees; these articles eventually found their way into the CRFG Fruit Gardener magazine.

Tree has been a member of the OC Chapter for around 20 years and is an active member of the propagation group.  She is a grafting demonstrator at our yearly grafting meetings in January, demonstrating a marvelous all in one grafting tool.  After retiring as an ICU nurse and recovery room RN, she spends her time woodworking, creating ceramics, keeping bees, gardening and preserving food.  These hobbies, especially growing, propagating and preserving fruits keeps her busy and happy every day.

Joan joined the Orange County Chapter in 2019.  She has grafted most of the 16 fruit trees in her garden with the knowledge she has received from CRFG.  She volunteers with the propagation committee regularly and is active in our meetings and in the other club events.  A retired photographer, she is our videographer at our meetings so that they can be recorded and shared live over Zoom, and takes pictures on our field trips so that we have nice photos to share in our newsletters.  She is also the creator of our beautiful Festival of Fruit logo!

Laura found the CRFG booth at the OC Fair in the mid 80s and thought it would be a great group for her folks. Riley & Sally Holly were very active with the OC Chapter holding many different board positions including Festival of Fruit chair twice. When Laura retired from teaching, she joined her Mom on the board coordinating membership and communication. Besides gardening, they enjoy Laura’s dogs and visiting with family and friends.

A medical doctor by day and the father of 7 children, Khaled calls himself “The Midnight Gardener” as he is often in the garden in the dead of night with his headlamp tending to his mangoes. Past Chair of the OC Chapter and mango expert, he also propagates fig cuttings en masse of many rare and hard to find varieties.  Khaled learned about the club from a fellow physician who came to the CRFG to learn how to graft and who described our scion exchange to him as a plant bonanza. Shortly after joining he became a lifetime member, and in his “spare time” enjoys ice hockey, reading and chasing down rare fruits.

Retired from a career teaching and school administration, Norm is expert at drip irrigation systems.

A sculptor and person of boundless energy, Nohad loves to share her knowledge and experience. One of our grafting meeting demonstators, she has become our local dragonfruit expert.

David and his wife are the proud leaders of a family of 3 children and 3 grandchildren. The family has enjoyed traveling to every continent of the world over the past 50 years. At home, they enjoy their expansive and organically tended garden and playing board games together.  David’s 3 acre garden, located at the top of a hill in La Habra Heights, is a former avocado orchard, with a few of the 100-year-old avocados still there.

John joined the OC Chapter around 2015 and set to work transforming his garden, digging out large palms and other impossible to remove landscape plants by hand. John bravely led us as Chair of the OC Chapter during the COVID years. He is “a misplaced Aussie” and avid world traveler who has lived and worked extensively in Asia. Studying hard and learning quickly, John has become a grafting expert, multigrafting every tree in his garden. He is the current chairman of our annual plant sale, is active in every club event and often teaches and demonstrates techniques at the propagation committee meetings.

Denny joined CRFG about 30 years ago when he saw a cherimoya at the CRFG booth at the Orange County fair.  A very active member of the club,  he spent 6-7 years as OC Fair booth chairman,  another 2-3 years as chairman of the scion exchange, 4 years as club treasurer, and was Green Scene/plant sale chairman for 6-7 years. He also spent about 20 years as a volunteer at SCREC with Julie Frink in the avocado fields. Since he retired as an RN, he has added 50 cruises to his travels with his wife and 2 children.