Earth Day is Yuuuge! at Good Earth Plant Company

| April 19, 2017 | Categories: Environment, Good Earth Plant Company Tips, Sustainable Living
Do whatever you can to reduce your environmental impact. Small steps add up. sustainablity
It all started as a protest over a Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969, and from the first Earth Day in 1970, it has become the single largest non-religious observance worldwide. Millions of people in 192 countries will participate in Earth Day activities this Saturday, April 22. Chances are pretty good you are one of them. San Diego participates with the largest free all-volunteer Earth Day event in the world at Balboa Park. It takes place this year on Sunday, April 23, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you attend, you can talk with 300 exhibitors, see the Children’s Earth Parade in the morning, an arts and crafts show, and plenty more.… Read More

Six Mistakes You’re Making With Your Indoor Plants

| April 13, 2017 | Categories: Gardening, Good Earth Plant Company Tips, Indoor Plants, Plantscaping
Mistakes, we’ve all made a few (with apologies to Frank Sinatra). If I was writing about my OWN mistakes, this blog post would be a novel. Some very big mistakes have made the news recently. I haven’t made any quite that big and I’m sure you haven’t either. But I bet you ARE making some mistakes caring for your indoor plants. The most important thing about making a mistake is recognizing it, and learning from it. And not repeating it. These are everyday principles to our horticultural service technicians at Good Earth Plant Company but we all had to learn these things too.… Read More

Meet the Next Generation of Eco-Warriors

| April 5, 2017 | Categories: Biophilia, Environment, Gardening, Good Earth Plant Company, Green Roofs, Living Walls, Nature and Wellbeing
Sixth grade students from Innovation Academy took a field trip to Good Earth Plant Company’s living lab earlier this year. Students are working on green roof and living wall projects and wanted to see the “real deal.” During their visit to our living lab, we first did a power point presentation about how to build a green roof or living wall and some of the issues and concerns keeping them alive. We showed them photos of green roofs and living walls around the world. Then it was time to go outside and see them up close. Boy do they have a lot of questions, some really smart ones.… Read More

No Surprise: More Evidence You Need Nature for Good Health

| March 30, 2017 | Categories: Biophilia, Nature and Wellbeing, Sustainable Living
While Americans have watched efforts to improve our natural healthcare system stall (and that’s as much as I care to mention about politics, I promise), I ran across a new European study offering great advice on something we can all do to improve our health right now. Plant a tree. People living in European nations face a lot of the same health problems we do in the United States: obesity, mental health disorders, and negative effects from pollution. On top of this is the stress and impact of living in our typical urban environments in cities. A team of researchers at the Institute for European Environmental Policy spent a year reviewing more than 200 academic studies on health outcomes to see if there were common findings and recommendations.… Read More

The Nose Knows When It’s Springtime

| March 23, 2017 | Categories: Biophilia, Environment, Gardening, Nature and Wellbeing
People who live in climates with true changes of season say they love the cycle from snow to rain to sunshine to fall leaves. It’s true there are times of year when spring flowers and fall leaves are a truly beautiful sight. Transplants to San Diego will tell you they “miss” the changing seasons. Southern California seasons change, too. The changes are more subtle, that’s all. We know it’s officially Spring this week, even when we’ve been hit by more rain (and nothing wrong with that). We are getting more hours of sunlight. Human beings instinctively feel it as part of the biophilic connection we have to the rhythms of nature.… Read More

It’s Natural to Love St. Patrick’s Day

| March 16, 2017 | Categories: Biophilia, Blog, Good Earth Plant Company, Nature and Wellbeing
You don’t have to be Irish (or part Irish like me) to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on Friday, March 17. We love any occasion focusing on things that are green! March 17 is the date of St. Patrick’s death. Yes, he was a real person. For many years St. Patrick’s Day was a serious religious holiday in Ireland, honoring the man who converted Ireland to Catholicism and who also reportedly “drove the snakes out of Ireland.” This is a historical headscratcher, because there are no snakes native to Ireland. Some historians now believe “snakes” refers to the ancient Pagans, especially the Druids who practiced the dominant spiritual belief in Ireland before the arrival of Christianity.… Read More

Healthy Houseplants Your Stuffy Nose Will Love

| March 11, 2017 | Categories: Gardening, Good Earth Plant Company Tips, Indoor Plants, Plantscaping
Thanks to everything you’ve read on our blog (OK, and maybe elsewhere), you’ve decided to add plants to your indoor environment. It’s a smart move and with spring around the corner, it’s perfect timing. But for the one out of ten people who suffer from asthma and allergies, you need to make your choices carefully. We’ve known since the landmark 1989 NASA study we quote so often here that plants can greatly improve our indoor air quality by filtering harmful toxins and pollutants – things like benzene, formaldehyde, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). But many plants also produce pollen as part of their reproductive process.… Read More

Go Green Or Your Employees Might Go Home

| March 2, 2017 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Biophilic Design, Environment, Good Earth Plant Company Tips, Indoor Plants, Nature and Wellbeing
The job market has been opening up. It’s great news for people who want to find a quality job. But it’s not such good news for employers trying to retain their most talented employees. Employers should pay attention to the findings in this year’s annual “State of the American Workplace” survey from the Gallup Organization. It gives them a game plan for developing the kind working environment talented people are looking for. A record 47 percent of the workforce say now is a good time to find a quality job. More than half of employees (51 percent) are searching for new jobs or watching for openings.… Read More

Hotel Del Coronado Gets Its Own Living Wall

| February 24, 2017 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Case Studies, Indoor Plants, Living Walls
Did anyone watch the TV game show “Wheel of Fortune” during its “San Diego Week?” The show backdrop featured classic symbols of San Diego. The most prominant was the unmistakable red turret roof of the Hotel Del Coronado. The beautiful Hotel del Coronado is a little more beautiful today thanks to its new living wall, installed in late January by Good Earth Plants and GreenScaped Buildings. This project has been a year in the making as it made its way through a lengthy approval process by the City of Coronado. The City and several organizations must maintain the historic preservation of the landmark and ensure any renovations or construction don’t harm the structure.… Read More

Bugging Out To Save Trees

| February 23, 2017 | Categories: Agriculture and Farming, Environment, Gardening, Good Earth Plant Company Tips, Indoor Plants, Nature and Wellbeing
If UC Santa Cruz music professor David Dunn scores a hit with his latest composition, he’ll have millions of listeners, maybe even hundreds of millions. But they won’t be spending a dime, and they won’t be singing or dancing. They’ll be dying. For ten years, Professor Dunn has created music using sounds in nature, specifically the sound of bark beetles in California’s forest as they munch on trees. Aggressive bark beetles make a LOT of noise. They also contribute to widespread tree destruction, which has been made worse due to several years of drought. His recordings of bark beetles were turned into a CD called “The Sound of Light in Trees.”… Read More