Nature and Health

National Gardening Exercise Day: June 6

| June 2, 2021 | Categories: Biophilia, Gardening, Nature and Wellbeing
Get in your workout by getting in some gardening! Sunday, June 6 is National Gardening Workout Day. Photo: Jim Mumford
Our sedentary lives really hit home for many people over the last year. Did you gain the COVID-19, or was it 20 pounds? We now understand sitting in front of a screen for much of the day can be as harmful to our health as smoking cigarettes. Walking more is great, and if you have a treadmill desk, it’s not so tough to finish 10,000 steps in a day. But if you need to go for a walk the old-fashioned way – yes, outside! – it means you need to get in a minimum of five miles of walking per day.… Read More

Six Natural Reasons Good Earth Plant Company Loves Summer

| June 20, 2018 | Categories: Biophilia, Environment, Nature and Wellbeing
There is a lot more to love about summer than just the longer days. Photo: PhotoMIX-Company-CreativeCommons License
By the time you read this blog post, it will officially be Summer 2018. The 2018 Summer Solstice officially took place at 3:07 a.m. today – Thursday, June 21. Did you catch yourself smiling or feeling happy about the arrival of summer? In a warm and sunny place year-round like San Diego, you wouldn’t think summer would be such a big deal. But it’s true, there are a lot of things about summer, sunlight, warm weather, and our biophilic connection to nature that make people happier and healthier in the summer months. There’s more and more scientific proof of it. Here are Good Earth Plant Company’s top six reasons why we love summer.… Read More

Trees Are a Teen’s BFF

| February 22, 2018 | Categories: Biophilia, Nature and Wellbeing, Sustainable Living
Are you and especially your kids getting enough vitamin N - as in Nature? Good Earth Plant Company San Diego
  It wasn’t all that long ago that my son and daughter, Ted and Allie, were typical high school students, in a typical 21st century high school. But you don’t have to be a parent or a high school student to feel the impact of the recent events in Parkland, Florida and worry about our teenagers. No, this blog isn’t going to turn into a discussion about events in the news. There are plenty of other places to talk about those issues. But what I do want to talk about is what seems like an epidemic of troubled, depressed teenagers. As a parent it upsets me to see so many kids hurting.… Read More

Ten Secrets to Successful Workplace Design in 2018

| December 14, 2017 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Biophilic Design, Case Studies, Good Earth Plant Company Tips, Plantscaping
We get to see a lot of workplaces all year long, and we get to work with a lot of smart architects and interior designers creating the modern workplace. We also talk a lot about what the ideal workplace of the future SHOULD look like when I get together with my fellow interior plantscapers and WELL Building Standard advocates across the country. There are plenty of studies where people have told us what they like, and also telling us what makes people more productive, more creative, and more content at work. With 2018 nearly on top of us (how did THIS happen?),… Read More

San Diegans Prove Biophilia Is For Real

| November 30, 2017 | Categories: Architecture and Design, Biophilia, Biophilic Design, Nature and Wellbeing
If there is one thing people know San Diego for, it’s our nice weather. Actually, people think we have perfect weather. Every time they see San Diego on television during an event like Comic-Con, or professional golf tournaments at Torrey Pines, it’s 75 degrees and clear with minimal humidity. If you travel like I do to conferences in other parts of the United States and mention you’re from San Diego, the first thing you hear is a sigh, and then some version of “I’d love to live in San Diego” or “I’d love to visit San Diego.” Or maybe, “I loved visiting San Diego!”… Read More

Change Your Screen, Change Your Life

| October 5, 2017 | Categories: Good Earth Plant Company Tips, Nature and Wellbeing
Just looking at photos of nature like our popular Monkey Faced Orchids can give some of the positive benefits of being outdoors. Monkey Faced Orchids (we love them too much to leave them out)
Where is your phone right now? Chances are good you can reach for it. One in three of you is reading this blog post on a phone right now. According to a 2016 Nielsen Research report, we are now spending nearly 11 hours a day using our tablets, smartphones, personal computers, multimedia devices, video games, radios, DVDs, DVRs and TVs. It’s an hour higher than 2015. We’re all told to put the devices down. You see how well that advice is going over! I’m as guilty as any of you. In my profession, it worries me. The more time we are looking at our smartphones while eating lunch or binging on “Narcos” during a weekend is time we aren’t appreciating the natural world around us.… 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

Plants’ Secret Language: Can They Communicate?

| July 21, 2016 | Categories: Biophilia, Gardening, Good Earth Plant Company, Nature and Wellbeing, Plantscaping
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

Don’t Read This Blog Post and You’ll Be Happier

| March 30, 2016 | Categories: Biophilia, Indoor Plants, Nature and Wellbeing, Sustainable Living
Happiness and what makes people happier has always been a keen interest of mine. You might think it’s because I started my career in Plantscaping and green building working in a flower shop. Because flowers make people happy, right? It actually goes back even further for me, a generation further to be exact. My father, Bob, has always loved nature and it definitely rubbed off on me. When he took up nature photography as a serious hobby and then a second profession, it reinforced all those lessons from my childhood. Check out his website here, you’ll love it as much as I do.… Read More

Catch Up With Top Reader Recommended Blog Posts

| March 9, 2016 | Categories: Blog, Green Roofs, Living Walls, Nature and Wellbeing, Newsletters, Sustainable Living, Water and Water Conservation
Catch up with our top blog posts so far for 2016 on topics including stormwater pollution, nature and well-being, and how to recognize and treat seasonal affective disorder (SAD). If you aren’t receiving our newsletter, sign up here on our home page. We don’t sell your information or spam you, and you can unsubscribe anytime. We don’t like spam either!