green roofs

Green Roofs and the Drought: Invest Now, Save Later

| May 21, 2015 | Categories: Gardening, Good Earth Plant Company Tips, Green Roofs, Sustainable Living, Water and Water Conservation
GreenScaped Buildings installed this green roof at Rick Williams' Del Mar home in 2013.
Part three of a three part series We love green roofs and everything they stand for at Good Earth Plant Company and GreenScaped Buildings. Green roofs are the only feature of a building that actually improves with age, and results in extended life expectancy of a roof. Based on 65-plus years of experience with green roofs in Germany, a green roof can be expected to double or triple (and more!) the life of the underlying conventional roof by protecting it from damage due to debris, UV radiation, and the expansion an contraction caused by changes in temperature. This in turn minimizes construction waste in our landfills.… Read More

Will the U.S. Join France and Require Green Roofs?

| March 26, 2015 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Environment, Green Roofs, Sustainable Living
Germany has the largest concentration of green roofs with solar panels in the world. This is a school roof in Unterensinge, Germany, constructed in 2003. Photo: Courtesy Greenroofs.com database
You may have read the same headlines we did in the past week about new laws passed in France now requiring solar panels or vegetation sections on the roofs of all new commercial construction. French activists were pushing for 100 percent roof coverage but had to settle for Parliament requiring a minimum of coverage. France isn’t the first to mandate more environmentally friendly construction involving green roofs or solar energy. Germany has been a leader in this effort for 50 years. The City of Toronto is the first city in North America to have a bylaw to require and govern the construction of green roofs on new development.… Read More

A Merry Message from Jim Mumford and Good Earth Plants

| December 24, 2014 | Categories: Green Roofs, Living Walls, Newsletters
Ho Ho Ho! The holidays are upon us. The Good Earth Elves have been busy decorating our clients’ homes and businesses for the season, including our custom creations for commercial clients Qualcomm and Illumina. My busy travel schedule not only taught me a lot, it made me appreciate San Diego even more than I already do. Out of the four conferences, I thoroughly enjoyed Nashville (it was cold – 28 degrees) and the Cities Alive Conference. Lots of Jim in Plants conversations about green roofs and living walls (vertical gardens) and how to design them, what system and plants to use and how to maintain them long term.… Read More

Giving Thanks at Good Earth Plants and GreenScaped Buildings

| November 26, 2014 | Categories: Good Earth Plant Company, Indoor Plants, Sustainable Living
It is Thanksgiving 2014, and I’m thankful for many people in my life. I’m thankful for: My folks, they set a good standard and give me plenty to both admire and laugh about. Not that they’re perfect, don’t go getting ideas Mom and Dad. My son Ted: just enough of me to make me proud, just enough “other” to make him interesting. My daughter Allie: smart, capable and talented – getting ready to launch herself on the world. I hope we’re ready. My sister Monica, who has been with me since the beginning and is a huge help today. The rest of my family.… Read More

Ellen DeGeneres Proves Living Walls are Trending

| September 18, 2014 | Categories: Green Roofs, Living Walls, Media Coverage
The Ellen Show goes green for Season 12 with a living wall.
There is no hotter daytime talk show on TV in 2014 than “The Ellen Show.” Ellen DeGeneres is an Emmy winning, pioneering comedienne. Ellen’s set has gotten a beautiful makeover for Season 12. It seems like Ellen has gotten the message about the benefits of bringing plants into your workplace. Ellen’s new set features multiple large screens, many beautiful potted plants and an impressive living wall. Take a look for yourself. We have discussed here many times the benefits and beauty of having plants in doors, such as improved air quality and overall health, and we are so glad at Good Earth Plants to see that one of America’s favorite celebrities agrees.… Read More

It’s a Picnic Working at Good Earth Plants & GreenScaped Buildings

| September 11, 2014 | Categories: Blog, Good Earth Plant Company
The Frisbee golfers of Good Earth Plants & GreenScaped Buildings.
At Good Earth Plants and GreenScaped Buildings we know that you can’t have a great company without great employees. It is part of our value statement to have fun working together. At our annual company picnic this year, we took a little time off to enjoy each other’s company and celebrate what a great year it has been thanks to you, our customers. When we aren’t providing our clients with beautiful plants, living walls, and green roofs, we are all taking a break to refresh and regenerate, just as Nature intended. Morley Field in beautiful Balboa Park was the natural setting for our company picnic this year.… Read More

Price Drops Mean Green Roofs for All

| August 27, 2014 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Green Roofs
At Good Earth Plant Company and GreenScaped Buildings, we believe green roofs are beautiful, beneficial, and just overall wonderful.  But we know the cost is sometimes more than our clients had originally budgeted when they contact us.  We love providing our clients with the green roof of their dreams no matter the budget, and soon it will be a little easier to do so. As green roofs and other forms of Building-Integrated Vegetation become more popular, prices start to drop. For example, according to an article in Energy Management Today, by 2017 one of the major components of green roofs provided to us by our supplier Columbia Green Technologies will drop by 28 percent.… Read More

Planting Seeds at ASLA San Diego Living Architecture Mixer

| July 24, 2014 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Good Earth Plant Company, Green Roofs, Indoor Plants, Living Walls
Plenty of seeds were planted at the ASLA San Diego Living Architecture Mixer at Good Earth Plants.
It’s hard to say who enjoyed our recent Good Earth Plants and GreenScaped Buildings Living Architecture Mixer for ASLA San Diego: the hosts, or the attendees. It’s fair to say everyone had a great time. We welcomed 80 attendees including Landscape Architects, Architects, and Interior Designers. Food was eaten, drinks were had, and knowledge was shared. Many professionals viewed, touched, and experienced our dozens of Living Wall and Green Roof demos in our Good Earth Plant Company Living Lab. Even our bar had a green roof. Our rooftop irrigation system turned while our attendees were viewing our original green roof on the GEP HQ building.… Read More

Good Earth Plants Hosts ASLA Living Architecture Mixer on Thursday, July 17

| July 14, 2014 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Good Earth Plant Company, Green Roofs, Living Walls
Join us on July 17 for the ALSA mixer at Good Earth Plant Company.
Are you a landscape designer or architect? Are you an interior designer or a space planner? Do things like sustainability, energy reduction and storm water retention excite you? Would you like to learn how living walls and green roofs can benefit your work? Then Thursday, July 17 is your lucky day! Good Earth Plant Company and our sister company Greenscaped Buildings will host an open house and mixer for the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) on Thursday, July 17, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Good Earth Plants has specialized in containerized “plantscapes” (anything in a pot or planter) with award winning service and design since 1977.… Read More

Good Earth Plants Thanks You For Visiting Our Open House

| May 1, 2014 | Categories: Gardening, Good Earth Plant Company, Indoor Plants
We love having our friends, family, clients and colleagues visit Good Earth Plant Company for our Open House and Plant Sale - or anytime at all!
  “April Showers bring May Flowers….” While we certainly needed the rain, my fingers were crossed for sunny skies Friday, April 24 as we hosted our spring Good Earth Plants Open House and Plant Sale. While it wasn’t exactly sunny, we did manage to hold off the rain until later that night and have a tremendous Open House that day. And the wind? What’s a little breeze! Our semi-annual event brought record-breaking numbers of new guests to view eight different types of green roofs and two dozen living wall displays that interested a number of architects, landscape architects and interior designers, not to mention a few potential customers.… Read More