Good Earth Plant Company

Good Earth Plant Company is San Diego’s largest locally-owned provider of interior and exterior landscape design, plant installations and maintenance in non-traditional spaces. Our highly experienced and diverse staff has helped us achieve this leadership position.

Our horticultural experts apply everything we have learned over four decades in business about growing plants in containers to introducing plants and nature into our urban environment. We make use of non-traditional gardening space: green roofs, living walls, tower gardens, and more that we have yet to discover.

Good Earth Plant Company’s mix of clientele includes biotech, financial, hospitality, healthcare, retail, designers, specifiers, property management, technology, developers and homeowners. Our clients partner with us in everything we do.

Good Earth Plant Company is experienced in large-scale projects, technology, construction timelines, project management and creative design build. We take equal care in creating a beautiful interior wall or tabletop design for your office or home.

We use all of the resources available to create the most enriched environment for our clients. Our long list of awards speaks for our quality and innovation. But we take even more pride in the happiness of our clients with our work.

Let The Sunshine In To Lift Your Mood Naturally

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

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

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

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

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

I’m Jim Mumford and I Approved This Green Message

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

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

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

Plants’ Secret Language: Can They Communicate?

People have been talking to plants for years. Is there now a way for plants to talk to us?
When I first got started working with plants professionally in the late 1970s, talking to your plants to make them grow better was a hot topic. Even Prince Charles said in a 1986 interview that he talked to his plants. “I just come and talk to the plants, really. Very important to talk to them; they respond.” Some people thought it was pretty hippie dippy, but others took it seriously including a lot of scientists, long before the 1970s fad. German researcher Gustav Fechner wrote a book about it in 1848. Electrical signals in plants were discovered over 100 years ago, in 1873, by British scientist John Burdon-Sanderson.… Read More

Nature Photography Is A Family Affair In New Book

I’m fascinated on both a personal and professional level with the principles of biophilia, the instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems. Edward O. Wilson introduced this concept in his book, Biophilia (1984). He defines biophilia as “the urge to affiliate with other forms of life.” The implications for our personal physical and mental well-being are profound. We can use the principles of biophilia and improve our well-being by proactively seeking this connection with nature through things like introducing plants into our work and home environments, taking walks through parks, or encouraging the integration of nature into our everyday urban spaces with elements such as living walls.… Read More

Summer Gardening Projects Let Kids Get Dirty and Keep Parents Happy

Share your spare veggies and other produces with co-workers this summer.
Kids are counting down the days until school is out for the summer. Don’t we all remember that feeling? If you’re a parent, you have a different perspective. Something like, “oh no, how am I going to keep the kids busy and out of trouble all summer!” Why not encourage your kids to do something that comes naturally? Encourage them to get their hands dirty in fun gardening activities. Take advantage of San Diego’s summer weather to work on projects outdoors when it’s cool enough, and indoors when the sun is a little too strong. There are many age appropriate opportunities for gardening and art projects that will instill a love of nature that will last a lifetime.… Read More

Good Earth Plants Presents Our New Show: “Law & Order: SPU”

No, that’s not a typo in this week’s blog headline. In the Good Earth Plant Company version of the show, it’s “Law & Order: Special Plants Unit.” We noticed several stories about crime involving nature recently and decided it’s time for our own L&O episode. In L&O’s hometown of New York City, call it a victory for trees over vandals. The Bloomberg administration wrongly gave Fashion Week organizers permission to chip down dozens of trees and yank out azaleas in Damrosch Park outside Lincoln Center to make room for a fashion show in 2010. After we pick our jaw back up off the floor, we’re glad nearby neighbors including Cleo Dana sued to get their park back.… Read More