Found: Cultivating gardens, growing people

By Donato DiRenzo II

Les Ulm has loved gardening and growing plants for years. He can remember moving into his apartment with his wife when they were newly married and wanting to bring life to the place. Instead of buying a plant like most people, they cut the top off of a pineapple, placed it in water and eventually grew it into a beautiful fern-like plant.

His first passion was not for growing plants though; he wanted to help people grow. Ulm has been involved in youth activism and community development his entire career. Having spent his life helping children of all ages, ethnicities and backgrounds he knows the value that comes with being a part of a supportive community.

When he began thinking of ways to combine his passions, he stumbled upon the concept of a community garden. There, people share space, ideas, plants and tools, which helps bring them together. The gardeners get to know people they might not otherwise meet, which Ulm finds to be a very good thing.

Ulm has taken a lot of what he does from a document published by the American Community Gardening Association entitled, “Cultivating Community: Principles and Practices for Community Gardening as a Community Building Tool.”

“It’s the only gardening book you’ll ever read that doesn’t tell you how to grow a single flower or vegetable, but it does tell you how to grow community,” he said.

For Ulm a synergistic relationship exists between growing gardens and communities, and being able to help in the process brings him the most joy.