Ron Finley

“Gansta Gardener” – The Ron Finley Project – Los Angeles, CA USA

Armed with a shovel, some soil and seeds, Ron Finley has come to be known as the “Gangsta Gardener” and his unexpected tactics have made him one of L.A.’s most widely known artivists. He is a former fashion designer turned gardening enthusiast (“renegade gardener” as some call him).

Frustrated by his community’s lack of access to fresh, organic food, Finley inadvertently started a revolution when he turned the parkway in front of his South Central L.A. home into an edible garden in 2010. When the city cited him for his plantings, Finley started a bureaucratic battle, gathering signatures and working with local officials until city ordinances were altered to include edibles.

“Gardening is gangsta: Mother Nature is gangsta. Being educated, creative and self-sustaining is gangsta”

Ron’s goal was simple; bring healthy food to an area where there was none. Ron decided he did not want to live in a food prison anymore so he began to plant his own food. This simple logic inspired Ron’s mission to turn food prisons into food forests.

“Growing your own food is like printing your own money.”

With donated tools, saplings and seeds, he organized volunteers and led “dig-ins” citywide, planting edible gardens in resident parkways and yards, schools and homeless shelters. Eventually Finley’s work earned him an invite to the annual TED conference, an event where innovators share their ideas through storytelling. Finley’s TED Talk is a testament to his passion for the work. It has been viewed by nearly three million people to date on YouTube. Countless phone calls, emails and website messages have told Finley that his words and actions have affected people from Kauai to Qatar.

“Gardening is the most therapeutic and defiant act you can do, especially in the inner city.”

With so much momentum behind him, he began to focus his energy on The Ron Finley Project, an organization which is changing culture from the ground up. Finley now speaks at global conferences and in classrooms regularly, spreading his gardening gospel wherever he’s invited.

The Ron Finley Project is teaching communities how to transform food deserts into food sanctuaries, and teaching individuals how to regenerate their lands into creative business models. We envision and want to facilitate a world where gardening is gangsta!

“I am an artist. Gardening is my graffiti. A graffiti artist beautifies walls; I beautify parkways and yards. I treat the garden as a piece of cloth and the plants and the trees are the embellishment of that cloth. You’d be surprised what soil can do if you let it be your canvas.”

Website: Rob Finley

Video 1) A guerilla gardener in South Central LA
Video 2) Masterclass