biophilia

Good Earth Plant Company Wishes You Happy 4715

| January 26, 2017 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Gardening, Nature and Wellbeing
Gung Hay Fat Choi 4715 (Happy Lunar New Year) from Good Earth Plant Company!
We never turn down the opportunity to celebrate a holiday at Good Earth Plant Company. So we are happy to wish you a Happy New Year, because Saturday, January 28, is the start of the Chinese or Lunar New Year 4715. It is celebrated by one-sixth of the world’s population. The Lunar New Year is the most important holiday in the Chinese calendar. The Chinese lunar calendar measures months the way most cultures did from the beginning of humanity, by following the cycles of the moon. The lunar calendar begins each month when the night sky is darkest, on the new moon.… Read More

What Did You Want To Know from Good Earth Plants in 2016?

| January 5, 2017 | Categories: Gardening, Good Earth Plant Company Tips, Living Walls, Sustainable Living
Good Earth Plant Company has so many innovative ways to add plants to your interior design today, including spectacular moss walls.
The confetti and streamers are finally cleaned up, the holiday decorations (mostly) put away for another year. It’s time to begin 2017 with a clean slate. Doesn’t that feel good? It’s also a good time to look back, take stock, make some observations and learn some lessons. Applied to this blog, we try to provide useful, informative, and sometimes just plain enjoyable information. How do we know if we’re doing a good job? Thanks to technology, we know when people are clicking on our website and reading blog posts, not just the most recent post but every single blog post we’ve ever published.… Read More

2016 Year In Review – How Did We Do?

| December 22, 2016 | Categories: Awards & Achievements, Good Earth Plant Company, Living Walls, Nature and Wellbeing
Good Earth Plant Company's latest moss wall project at the Bardstown Bourbon distillery in Louisville, Kentucky.
As we head into our 40th year of operation, Good Earth Plant Company is more committed than ever to our mission to bring the beauty, health, wellbeing and environmental benefits of living plants and nature into your life. We started our business providing interior plantscaping design and service to many of the leading workspaces in the San Diego region. Plantscaping is still at the heart of what we do, but our thinking about it has evolved. Making our workplaces and homes look “nice” is a fine motivation. But we now grasp the importance of integrating nature into our lives everyday by bringing the “outside” into our buildings and our urban environment with plants, and the many positive effects of doing so.… Read More

Kermit The Frog Was Wrong: It IS Easy Being Green

| December 15, 2016 | Categories: Environment, Gardening, Living Walls, Nature and Wellbeing, Sustainable Living
The moss wall installed by Good Earth Plant Company at San Diego's newest LEED Certified building, owned by Kilroy Realty in Del Mar Heights.
I don’t remember exactly when the announcement of the Pantone Company’s “Color of the Year” became such a big deal. For the last few years at least, this American company best known for creating a universal color matching system called the “Pantone Matching System” names one color every December it thinks will be the hottest color trend in the coming year. Pantone has a committee of people who watch trends throughout the year in fashion, entertainment including films and TV, auto manufacturing, the fine art world, beauty products, and interior design. The committee members notice how the color is being used, what else it’s being used with, and whether it seems new or fresh.… Read More

Healing and Growing With Horticultural Therapy

| November 16, 2016 | Categories: Biophilia, Case Studies, Gardening, Indoor Plants, Nature and Wellbeing
Laura Eubanks in one of the beautiful gardens she designed. Photo: Kyle Short
Several years ago at a Water Conservation Garden event at Cuyamaca College, I met Laura Eubanks. I stopped at her booth to talk to her because she had some of the most beautiful succulent displays I’d seen in a long time. At the time, Laura was an aspiring landscape designer. She asked a lot of questions, and even then I knew she would be successful. Today, Laura’s company “Design for Serenity” and her one of a kind drought tolerant landscapes are gaining worldwide acclaim. She recently returned from Brazil where she installed two demonstration gardens. What I didn’t know until recently is why Laura was drawn to gardening.… Read More

Let The Sunshine In To Lift Your Mood Naturally

| November 10, 2016 | Categories: Biophilia, Environment, Good Earth Plant Company, Nature and Wellbeing
Light exposure is deeply tied to our wellbeing. When the days grow shorter, we need to be proactive to boost our sunlight and nature exposure. Good Earth Plant Company San Diego 858-576-9300
Are you feeling a little blue? You might be tempted to blame this week’s presidential election results. Hillary Clinton gave a gracious concession speech, and we hope the best for President-elect Donald Trump (and don’t go changing our environmental laws any time soon). But it might not be the only reason you aren’t your usual cheerful self. The weekend before Election Day, we went through our annual change back from Daylight Time to Standard Time in the United States. Just the one hour of difference means most people are going home from work in the dark, and it also makes us aware we are slowly losing daylight a few minutes at a time until we reach the winter solstice on December 21 – just six weeks away.… Read More

Growing A Business, 39 Years and Counting

| November 1, 2016 | Categories: Awards & Achievements, Good Earth Plant Company, Green Roofs, Living Walls, Plantscaping
Thirty-nine years ago today, all I wanted was a way to support myself. I was almost 20 and my dad had just kicked me out of the house because I didn’t get a job over the summer. I got a part-time job while going to community college, working at an outdoor “plant stand” in the financial district of downtown San Diego. It turned into my own full-time business. Shortly after starting my gig working for “Plants on the Plaza,” the three owners decided it was too much hassle to make them any real money and they wanted to sell. Back home and at dinner that night, my Naval Captain father said, “Let’s buy it!”… Read More

Halloween: Good Earth Plant Company’s Favorite Biophilic Holiday

| October 27, 2016 | Categories: Biophilia, Nature and Wellbeing
No one loves Halloween more than California’s farmers, because we live in one of the top five pumpkin producing states. And everyone knows you can’t have Halloween without pumpkins! The others are Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Eighty percent of our U.S. pumpkin crop is available in the month of October. Displaying a pumpkin or carving one into a traditional Jack-O-Lantern is a popular Halloween tradition. Learning how this came about is a lesson in how deeply our modern world remains tied through our traditions to the earth and our relationship with the seasons and nature. You can thank America’s Irish immigrants for Halloween in this country.… Read More

Help Good Earth Plant Company Support “A Growing Passion”

| October 6, 2016 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Gardening, Indoor Plants, Media Coverage, Nature and Wellbeing
Jim Mumford and Nan Sterman, KPBS TV
One of my favorite ways to spend time is to pass along my love of plants and nature and educate people about their many benefits. But even though I try, I can’t do it all myself. I have a business to run after all! There are plenty of other people who feel the same way. One of them is my fellow San Diegan Nan Sterman. Nan is no “Jane come lately” to the sustainability movement. Since the 1970s (as long as me!) Nan has used her skills as a garden designer, author, botanist, and award-winning garden communicator to help transform planted landscapes from overly thirsty and resource intensive to climate appropriate and sustainable.… Read More

Projects Inspiring Us At Good Earth Plants RN

| September 29, 2016 | Categories: Biophilic Design, Case Studies, Green Roofs, Living Walls, Sustainable Living
Regular blog readers know about my passion for improving our communities and our health and well being through strengthening our connection to nature. It’s amazing to me how something simple like introducing natural elements in our work environment like plants and natural light can reduce job stress and improve our health overall. I get inspired when I see people around the world creating projects taking this simple idea and making it real. Yes, I also admit to being a little envious too, because I would love to see more projects like this in San Diego. Several projects got a “wow” out of me and I’d like to share them with you for your daily dose of “wow” instead of a basketball trick shot or cute pet video.… Read More