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Sow What? From a Designer’s Vantage Point: About Urban Gardens Robin Plaskoff Horton Founder, Creative Director, and Coolspotter Welcome to Urban Gardens, where I share my love affair with urban style, design, and nature. I was born in Tokyo, started kindergarden in Puerto Rico, grew up in Los Angeles beside the Pacific Ocean (no, I did not surf) and have lived for various periods of time in Berkeley, Paris, Boston, and New York. In my former life, I spent years in the corporate world as a creative director and designer, and principal of a boutique creative consulting firm. Back when green was just a color, I conceived of Urban Gardens as a print publication. After I presented the concept to a well-known creative director who’d launched a number of successful magazines, he asked, “who would want to read that?” Urban Gardens went into storage for a number of years, then in 2009, I resurfaced it as a blog. Every product, trend, and story I uncover on Urban Gardens is filtered through my unique and experienced designer lens. Urban Gardens is a lifestyle story told from the ground up. It’s about the whole circle: from planting a seed to cultivating a garden; to harvesting, cooking, and then serving it all up in style with family and friends in outdoor rooms and indoor gardens. Join me as I scout the world for the latest and greatest design ideas and trends, visiting the global marketplace to uncover the creative and innovative wares of talented designers and makers everywhere. Travel with me to explore intriguing and visually captivating destinations, to see, taste, and experience multi-culturally, what the global creative universe is growing and serving up in their own particular style. I’m really proud to share that Urban Gardens was one of only five blogs nominated (along with Epicurious and Mother Nature Network) in the Lifestyle category for a Webby Award–hailed by The New York Times as the “Internet’s highest honor.” And we’ve received some great validation from other writers: The Garden Writers Association awarded Urban Gardens both a Silver award for best electronic media design and a Gold award for best overall design across all media categories. In 2012, I was honored to be one of 14 international bloggers invited by Modenus to to London to cover The London Design Festival. After a few years at this, I now co-facilitate The Blog Workshops and have been invited to speak and present about storytelling for social media at various gigs including The Mother Nature News Fair, Women at Woodstock, The Garden Writers Association Annual Meeting, The Garden Bloggers Conference, and The Entrepreneurial Womens Network. And I’m for hire. _____________________________________________________________________________ Christine Cube Washington, DC Correspondent Our Washington, DC correspondent Christine Cube has a green thumb she can’t shake. After experiencing plant life on the West Coast, she’s made it her mission to figure out how to grow those beauties in Alexandria, Va. Christine is a longtime Polynesian dancer (specifically hula) and loves sharing the spirit of aloha. She’s also a journalist and has served the last six years as media relations manager for PR Newswire. Follow her at @cpcube. ____________________________________________________________________________ Get Fresh Updates Don’t miss anything! Receive the latest and greatest fresh Urban Garden updates! Subscribe by email (which will remain private, for our eyes only, I swear) or by RSS feed. Have a project to submit? Want to write for us? Contact Robin at robin (at) urbangardensweb (dot) com Interested in becoming an Urban Gardens sponsor? Urban Gardens offers strategic and creative opportunities for branded content. Contact us for details.