For Robin Plaskoff Horton, a creative director for over 30 years, design has always been a passion. When the idea for her award-winning website Urban Gardens came to her during a post-professional design workshop with iconic designer Milton Glaser, she felt she had found her niche.
Unlike suburban or rural gardeners who typically have sufficient space for a vegetable plot, urban gardeners face many challenges, with the need to find a suitable site often being the overriding issue. A trend spotter and design writer, Robin tackles these issues on her website in a way that both encourages and inspires. Her frequent updates feature innovative ideas, products, and techniques for cultivating a garden where there is little or no growing area.
Vertical gardens are one such way for urban gardeners to economize their small site and leave valuable floor space for furniture, grills, or décor. When picking edible plants for a vertical garden, Robin says to base your selections on the amount of sunlight your garden receives. Most vegetables and herbs require full sun for optimum growth, but leafy herbs and greens will grow well with 3 to 5 hours of light. “For pockets in vertical systems, choose compact crops like spinach, lettuce, parsley, Asian greens, or strawberries, mixing up plants with various colors and textures,” says Robin.
Robin says that many urban gardeners have created their own vertical gardens using “upcycled pallets, bookshelves, and DIY pocket gardens from hanging shoe bags.” For those looking for something more straightforward, there are also a number of commercially available vertical gardening units and kits available for purchase (see Resources for websites).