San Clemente Garden Club meetings are held at St. Andrew's Methodist Church, 2001 Calle Frontera, San Clemente, CA on the first Wednesday of the month—September through June at 1 o’clock PM. You can join the club by clicking here or by showing up at any monthly garden club meeting. Join now and your membership materials and name tag will be ready for you on the check-in table at the next meeting.

October’s guest speaker is Gabe Verduzco. Growing up in the Central San Joaquin Valley in Kingsburg, Gabe knew nothing about gardening. In his teens, he began growing tomatoes, pumpkins and his favorite corn, Vision, from seed catalogs. He enjoyed the outdoors- nature, bugs, and other critters were enticing to him. When he was almost 16, he began working with the USDA, working for plant pathologists and plant breeders. They were conducting various experiments to find organic methods to prolong the life of fruit and breed new varieties of table grapes and stone fruit. It is when they let him use the greenhouse to start his seeds that really helped him get into the plant world.

Gabe obtained his degree in Plant Science from Fresno State and began working for Filoli Gardens, the botanic garden in Woodside after that he moved to Oahu to start a small fruit farm and surf! Upon returning to the mainland, in 2017 he landed a role as Staff Research Associate at the University of California Cooperative Extension, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. His job was to examine trees for infestations, document the severity, and then map them for future treatment or removal. Now he works part-time for Center for Natural Lands Management as a park ranger at our local nature preserves; Dana Point Headlands and Marblehead in San Clemente. Full time, he is now a Regional Arborist Advisor for Rainbow Ecoscience.

In his off time, Gabe is dedicated to surfing and tending to his little garden in Capistrano Beach and he volunteers in managing social media for the Orange County Chapter of the California Native Plant Society.