plant care tips

Six Mistakes You’re Making With Your Indoor Plants

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

Shhh, Be Quiet – Your Houseplants are Sleeping

When the weather is sunny during the first few months of the year in San Diego, it’s hard to remember it’s winter time. Yes, even in Southern California. The days are getting longer again but we have several more weeks to go before we are getting a full, healthy dose of sunlight and the days even out into spring. During these winter months, your houseplants are taking a nap. Like many other creatures, they slow down and “hibernate” during the winter. Living creatures including plants evolved to conserve their energy when resources are scarce due to the natural cycle of the seasons in winter.… Read More

Good Earth Plants Holiday Myth Busting

Many myths circulate at Christmastime, and several of them deal with our favorite holiday theme plants. The Good Earth Plants Eco-Warrior is here with his Myth Busters hat on to help you out by spreading the true dirt. Myth 1: Poinsettias are poisonous. NO, poinsettias are NOT poisonous! It has been a real battle to bust this myth. Some sources attribute the rumor to a 1919 poisoning case in Hawaii that led to the death of a two year-old child. At the time, the cause of the poisoning was incorrectly determined to be a poinsettia leaf. Poison control centers nationwide say a child or pet weighing 50 pounds would have to eat 500 poinsettia leaves to even start being affected, and that might be due to plant overload versus outright poisoning.… Read More

Let Your Indoor Plants Chill Out This Winter

When you reposition plants to get the most winter light, it also helps to be sure your windows are nice and clean. Photo: Flickr/FD Richards
You might look outside at San Diego’s weather and find this hard to believe, but it really is fall, and winter is right around the corner. You can feel it when you get up on these cool early mornings. Maybe you’re wearing socks along with your flip flops, our way of bundling up in Southern California. (Not a good look, but that is another column). While you may not feel the change of seasons, your indoor plants do. They thrive in the spring and summer just like their outdoor counterparts. And just like your outdoor plants, they need some special care during the cooler months of the year, even if they aren’t so cool in San Diego.… Read More

Tips From Good Earth Plants To Keep Your Plants Healthy This Fall

We don't see a lot of fall leaves in San Diego, but there are some and the seasons do change. So should your plant care, indoors and outdoors.
Earlier this week it officially became Fall 2014, although with our recent warm weather it may be hard to believe.  Good Earth Plants wants to make sure you have the knowledge to tend your plants properly throughout the fall season. We know in the fall leaves change colors on the trees, and the weather cools down. How does this affect our indoor plants – or does it? Yes, our indoor plants react to the change of seasons, too. During the cooler seasons, there are fewer hours of daylight and the sun is farther away from Earth in the Northern Hemisphere. With less sun shining, we tend to leave our windows closed and turn up the heat.… Read More

Monkey Faced Orchids

We had so many readers interested in the Monkey-Faced orchid picture we posted, I thought I would pass along some quick information about them and about orchids in general. Besides being just about the cutest, funniest flora we’ve found, Monkey-Faced Orchids, or Grinning Monkey orchids live in the south-eastern Ecuadorian and Peruvian cloud forests at around 1000-2000 meters. Their scientific name is Dracula Simia-Dracula referring to the strange characteristic of the two long sepals, reminiscent of a certain Transylvanian count. Up in the cloud forests, these orchids can flower at any time-it’s not season specific and its’ scent resembles a very ripe orange. … Read More