Good Earth Plant Company

Green Roofs Are Even Greater Than We First Thought

| September 15, 2016 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Biophilic Design, Green Roofs
North America’s largest living roof – about the size of eight football fields – continues to flourish atop Dearborn Truck Plant’s final assembly building, part of the Ford Rouge Center. Photo: Courtesy Ford Motor Company
When I first installed the green roof at Good Earth Plant Company in 2007, all of the information about the long term impact came from Europe. There weren’t all that many green roofs in the United States and there weren’t many studies being conducted on the few that existed. Times change and we are much more enlightened about the positive impact of green roofs on the immediate environment and their contribution overall. Some of the best studies are coming from The Green Roof Research Program at Michigan State University. One of MSU’s collaborators is a company which might not come to mind when you think about green roofs: the Ford Motor Company.… Read More

Get Down On The Farm: San Diego Farm Tour Day is September 17

| September 8, 2016 | Categories: Agriculture and Farming, Environment, Gardening, Good Earth Plant Company, Indoor Plants, Sustainable Living
It's especially important to avoid using chemical fertilizers and pesticides if you're growing fruits and vegetabes in your garden.
If I asked you to name San Diego’s major industries, you would probably come up with tourism, the military, maybe biotech or craft beer. The one I bet you’d miss is agriculture and farming. Agriculture is the fourth largest industry in San Diego County. It’s a two billion dollar industry. San Diego County has more individual farms than any other county in the United States. Remember this if you get on the TV show “Jeopardy!” Most of our local farms are small boutique farms growing ornamental trees and shrubs, indoor plants and flowers. This is two-thirds of the farming income. Avocados take up more land but generate less profit.… Read More

Helping Homeless San Diegans One Plant At A Time

| September 1, 2016 | Categories: Case Studies, Gardening, Good Earth Plant Company, Indoor Plants, Nature and Wellbeing, Plantscaping
Alpha Project residents show off their new orchids from Good Earth Plant Company.
Several months ago at a Citizens Coordinate for Century 3 (C3) panel discussion on the homelessness problem in San Diego, one of the panel members really energized me. Her name is Amy Gonyeau, and she is Chief Operating Officer with the Alpha Project. For those who aren’t familiar with it (like me I’m embarrassed to say), Alpha Project is a nonprofit human services organization that serves over 4,000 homeless men, women, and children each day with a variety of services like affordable housing, residential substance abuse treatment, transportation, mental health counseling, employment training, and also emergency services. I started my career in the plant industry with a flower kiosk on the corner of 6th and B streets in downtown San Diego.… Read More

Go Green When You Remodel Your Home

| August 25, 2016 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Environment, Indoor Plants, Plantscaping, Sustainable Living
Good Earth Pl;ant Company makes sustainability a way of life.
Plenty of people put off home improvement and remodeling projects over the last few years due to America’s Great Recession. Get ready for a new look in a lot of homes – maybe even your own. Several major industry studies predict a big jump in remodeling activity. The Joint Center for Housing Students of Harvard University projects a trend for home improvement and repair expenses to reach eight percent by 2017, nearly double the historic average, based on its own model it calls the “Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity” or LIRA. And who are we to argue with Harvard? The website HomeAdvisor and the National Association of Home Builders reports also agree with the Harvard outlook.… Read More

I’m Jim Mumford and I Approved This Green Message

| August 18, 2016 | Categories: Biophilia, Good Earth Plant Company, Sustainable Living
Go green this election and request an electronic sample ballot this year.
The November election is barely 10 weeks away and San Diego County residents will have a LOT of decisions to make. Not just the big one about who will be our next American President, but about legalizing marijuana, changing the way local elections work, and whether we want to help build a new stadium/convention center downtown for the San Diego Chargers. There are so many decisions and so much information for voters, the San Diego County Registrar of Voters will send City of San Diego residents not just one but TWO ballot pamphlets, each more than 100 pages long. Only the fall fashion magazines have more pages (so I am told).… Read More

Amazon Goes Big With New HQ Biosphere in Seattle

| August 4, 2016 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Biophilia, Biophilic Design, Living Walls, Nature and Wellbeing, Plantscaping, Sustainable Living
Rendering of the Amazon headquarters "biospheres" under construction in Seattle. Photo Courtesy NBBJ
Outrageous workplace perks in the tech industry have reached epic proportions. Google has the reputation of offering the most extreme benefits. Google better enjoy its status while it can. The new Amazon headquarters in downtown Seattle is going to blow Google’s free laundry services and the Facebook snack bar away. Amazon is building three massive “biosphere” type greenhouses as part of its new $4 billion headquarters in the hip Denny Regrade. These three connected greenhouses will house 65,000 square feet of tropical plants, with 3,000 different species. Compare this to the San Diego Botanical Garden in Balboa Park. It houses 2,100 species of plants in just under 20,000 square feet of space.… Read More

What’s Good For Nature Is Good for the Bottom Line at the San Diego Green Building Expo

| July 28, 2016 | Categories: Good Earth Plant Company, Green Roofs, Nature and Wellbeing
USGBC Green Building Conference and Expo September 16, 2016
San Diego is known for a lot of things. Comic-Con. Craft beer. Green building. Yes, the City of San Diego and the state of California as a whole are policy leaders when it comes to setting goals for using water and energy wisely and in sustainable ways, which includes encouraging green building. We all know by now we’ve got to get serious about sustainability to stop doing damage to the planet. Plant a green roof is a good start! But what’s good for Mother Nature can also be good for the bottom line. Business can benefit from biophilic design and thinking.… Read More

Breathe Easier With These Top Air Purifying Plants

| July 14, 2016 | Categories: Environment, Good Earth Plant Company Tips, Indoor Plants, Nature and Wellbeing, Sustainable Living
Our most popular blog post of all time describes the many benefits of indoor plants in the workplace. It makes me happy when I see people interested in this topic and educating themselves on the myriad of benefits that indoor plants provide to their human companions beyond just looking pretty. Many of these proven benefits can be traced back to one of the original studies done by NASA in conjunction with the Associated Landscape Contractors of America in 1989, which wanted to learn the most effective “house-plants” which might help purify the air their astronauts must breathe during extended missions at the International Space Station, and eventually on trips to Mars and beyond.… Read More

Nature Has The Answer to Our Toughest Questions (As Usual)

| July 7, 2016 | Categories: Biophilia, Nature and Wellbeing, Sustainable Living
Could a bionic leaf help us cut our use of fossil fuels for energy and solve the global warming crisis? Research at Harvard University is promising.
The quest to find a new energy source and solve our global warming problem could come down to turning over a new leaf. It’s one of the most exciting developments in science I’ve read about in a long time. Daniel Nocera, the Patterson Rockwood Professor of Energy at Harvard University, has been working on a way to find a new energy source that is practical and replicable. His work is based on one of the most efficient energy processing machines there is: the simple plant leaf, which is responsible for turning light (solar energy) into chemical energy that it can use to fuel growth.… Read More

Cool Moss Walls: The Hottest Trend in Green Living

| June 23, 2016 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Indoor Plants, Living Walls, Moss Walls, Plantscaping
Good Earth Plant Company installed this moss wall at the Bluebeam software company in Pasadena, California, covering three of our hot design trends: moss walls, the WELL building standard, and the color green.
We make the rounds of all top events in the green building industry checking on the latest products and trends. I just returned from Longwood Gardens. The hot topic was hotter than San Diego’s last heat wave: moss walls. As Bernie Sanders might say, moss walls were YUUUUGE! It’s been a long time since everyone was this excited about a single product. The reasons are simple. Moss walls provide all the benefits of traditional living walls and several more. They can thrive in nearly any indoor setting. Growing conditions can be far from perfect – but they don’t need any light, water or maintenance.… Read More