sustainability

Let An Urban Farm Grow In Your Part of the Planet

| October 1, 2015 | Categories: Agriculture and Farming, Environment, Gardening, Good Earth Plant Company Tips, Sustainable Living
The Uncommon Ground rooftop urban farm in Chicago. Photo: Courtesy UncommonGround.com
It was great to see so many of you at the U.S. Green Building Conference on “The Value of Sustainability” held on September 22 at SDG&E’s Energy Innovation Center, where we have one of our favorite outdoor succulent walls. It looked fantastic if I do say so myself! If you missed it, the conference featured local and national experts including yours truly talking about sustainable strategies on the triple bottom line: People, Planet and Profit. They aren’t mutually exclusive. It was well attended and well organized. Due to the press of business at Good Earth Plant Company I wasn’t able to stay all day, but many people did.… Read More

Ripping Out Your Lawn? Consider Foodscaping

| July 18, 2015 | Categories: Agriculture and Farming, Environment, Gardening, Good Earth Plant Company, Indoor Plants, Sustainable Living, Water and Water Conservation
Something as simple as a community garden can greatly increase your general happiness daily. Photo: Courtesy Karen Contreras, Urban Plantations
Homeowners in drought-stricken California have gotten serious about making changes in their water consumption. They are ripping out their water-guzzling lawns in record numbers. What they don’t always do is give a lot of thought about what will replace that lawn. So we end up seeing a lot of mulch and rocks as a quick fix. Consider a tastier alternative: Foodscaping. The simplest definition of foodscaping is landscaping with edible plants. It embraces the concept of growing food in place of lawns on private or sometime community property. It’s something in between farming, where you are growing food in a way that maximizes output, and landscaping that is meant to be decorative.… Read More

What Have You Done For Me Lately?

| July 9, 2015 | Categories: Good Earth Plant Company, Green Roofs, Indoor Plants, Sustainable Living
It's a small step in the right direction toward preserving our planet's resources.
Some days the news is a little hard to take, full of reports about shootings, natural disasters, and drought. I thought I would write about it, but then I realized the topic seemed familiar. Check out this blog post I wrote two years ago this month. Not much has changed, has it? The location of the shootings is different, that is about it. As for our weather, it only seems to get drier and hotter. My observations and my advice then wouldn’t change now either. We know what needs to be done and we have many of the solutions at our fingertips, even more than we did two years ago.… Read More

Urban Agriculture: Why Eating and Buying Local Matters to the Planet

| June 11, 2015 | Categories: Agriculture and Farming, Architecture and Design, Biophilia, Gardening, Good Earth Plant Company, Green Roofs, Indoor Plants, Living Walls, Sustainable Living
With so many farmer's markets and other local food resources in San DIego County, it's easier than ever to buy local food products.
We get asked a lot to create edible walls and green roofs that are roof top farms. I recently ran across this thought-provoking article, thought-provoking for me at least as a person who thinks a lot about our relationships to plants, nature and the Earth. This research in this article shows 90 percent of all the people in the United States could eat foods grown within 100 miles of home. The study was conducted by two engineering professors at the Sierra Nevada Research Institute run by the University of California at Merced. Read it here. Many people have talked about the need to support local food supplies for many reasons.… Read More

Get Your Food Closer to Home and Save the Planet

| February 26, 2015 | Categories: Agriculture and Farming, Gardening, Good Earth Plant Company Tips, Sustainable Living
A drawing of the planned vertical farm in Jackson, Wyoming. Courtesy Vertical Harvest
Regular readers here know how much I love urban farming. Good Earth Plant Company employee Dawn Weatherford (thank you, Dawn!) tipped me off to one of the most exciting urban farming project I’ve ever seen and I wanted to share it with you. The startup company Vertical Harvest plans to turn an old industrial building in Jackson, Wyoming into a huge vertical farm. It will use a hydroponic system to grow vegetables like microgreens and tomatoes. The photos and description of what the company intends to do are eye-popping. The city of Jackson is partnering with Vertical Harvest to make this happen.… Read More

Resolve to Get Connected in 2015

| January 22, 2015 | Categories: Good Earth Plant Company, Indoor Plants, Living Walls, Sustainable Living
My first plant selfie of the year at the TPIE show in Florida.
Happy New Year! Can you believe we are 15 years into a new century? I’m getting inspired at the Tropical Plant Industry Exhibition (TPIE) in Florida, one of our hottest trade shows and conferences, literally. This group knows its audience well. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance in most of the U.S. to attend a trade show located in sunny south Florida in January? Back home they would be shoveling snow and only dreaming of the warm weather ahead. I’m motivated by the opportunity to meet and learn from other like-minded people, including a meeting with members of the nonprofit group Green Plants for Green Buildings.… Read More

Give Thanks For Good Earth Plant Company’s Trivia Contest

| November 13, 2014 | Categories: Agriculture and Farming, Environment, Good Earth Plant Company
Which of these popular Thanksgiving vegetables is native to North America, and which ones are not?
Part of our mission at Good Earth Plant Company is to share what we have learned and educate our clients and friends. But we also like to have fun, so why not combine the two? Welcome to our first Good Earth Plant Company Trivia Contest, first in what we hope will be a long running series. We will give you ten questions on a specific theme. The rules are simple. Email your ten answers to Katelyn@goodearthplants.com The person who gets the most questions right by 12 midnight on Saturday, November 15 gets a swell prize: your choice of a beautiful potted orchid, or a $20 Starbucks gift card.… Read More

Let Your Indoor Plants Chill Out This Winter

| November 6, 2014 | Categories: Good Earth Plant Company Tips, Indoor Plants
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

Go Green at Sea: Royal Caribbean’s New Ships

| October 2, 2014 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Biophilic Design, Living Walls
This new living wall aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship will really get around. Courtesy Royal Caribbean
Royal Caribbean is known for its extravagant cruises and for keeping its guests happy with the latest shipboard innovations. Its ships “Oasis of the Seas” (what a great name!) and “Allure of the Seas” feature the perfect balance of activities and relaxation. Where better to relax in the middle of the deep blue sea than in the green of the Royal Caribbean Central Park? This version of Central Park is an onboard neighborhood garden covered with 12,000 beautiful living plants. Good Earth Plant Company was thrilled to learn about this, and we are so glad to see ships growing real plants instead of displaying all replicas as many have done in the past.… 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