Media Coverage

Meet East County’s Eco-Warrior Jim Mumford – East County Magazine

| May 8, 2010 | Categories: Good Earth Plant Company, Media Coverage, Nature and Wellbeing
First came green roofs; now edible walls join pioneering urban farming trends May 8, 2010 (San Diego’s East County) — Plenty of people told Jim Mumford he was nuts building a green roof project in the middle of a Kearny Mesa industrial park. Three years later, the roof is thriving and Mumford’s GreenScaped Buildings is a pioneering venture and he’s earned a reputation as leader in this segment of the green building industry. Read more: http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/3267

Here We Grow – Pacifica San Diego Magazine

| April 24, 2010 | Categories: Biophilic Design, Green Roofs, Media Coverage
When there’s no space on the ground, Jim Mumford plants on the walls and the roof. His Kearny Mesa-based company, Good Earth Plant Company, has been providing plantscaping services for San Diego homeowners and businesses for more than 30 years. Today, Mumford’s new venture, GreenScaped Buildings, also creates “green roofs” and “living walls,” giving life to otherwise inanimate objects. Read more: http://www.pacificsandiego.com/2010/04/24/here-we-grow/

Walls you can eat – CNN Money

| April 12, 2010 | Categories: Agriculture and Farming, Living Walls, Media Coverage, Sustainable Living
SAN DIEGO (CNNMoney.com) — Mario Batali decided last year to install a garden between his adjoining West Hollywood restaurants, Osteria Mozza and Pizzeria Mozza. But a plain old backyard patch wouldn’t do. Batali wanted something more visually striking, something more … vertical? So he turned to Jim Mumford, the owner of Good Earth Plant and Flower Company in San Diego. Mumford, 52, had built a reputation as a nontraditional gardener. In March 2007, he embarked on a “giant experiment,” replacing the 1,800-square-foot roof of a commercial building he owned with a planter’s paradise: three inches of specialized, lightweight soil over a padded waterproofing and drainage system.… Read More

Mozza’s Edible Garden Wall: Please Don’t Eat the Geraniums While You Wait, LA Weekly

| February 26, 2010 | Categories: Agriculture and Farming, Media Coverage, Sustainable Living
Excerpt from the article that appeared in the LA Weekly blog, February 2010 The next time you’re stuck in line outside Pizzeria Mozza, you’ll have a much more pastoral setting for your wait than the usual valet caravan, the hungry crowds, the celebrities dodging TMZ for a pizza. This morning, Nancy Silverton and crew had an edible garden wall installed along the otherwise unremarkable wall between the Pizzeria and the Osteria on Highland Avenue. The wall is a testament to Mozza’s ongoing commitment to sustainability. It also provides some good aesthetics, as well as, perhaps, a get-your-own amuse bouche. The San Diego company Good Earth Plants & GreenScaped Buildings put up a vertical wall of herbs and flowers and lettuces, including 72 square feet of sage, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, beets, chicory, Italian dandelion, han tsai tai, 3 kinds of mint, 4 kinds of edible geraniums and Chinese celery.… Read More

Good Earth Plant Company: Vertical veggies – KFMB TV CBS 8 News

| February 10, 2010 | Categories: Agriculture and Farming, Media Coverage, Sustainable Living
SAN DIEGO, Calif. (CBS 8) – When the folks at Good Earth Plant Company want some from veggies or herbs, all they do is clip them right off their wall. “We’ve got parsley, we’ve got some beets, we’ve got some mint, a little bit of rosemary, strawberries,” Jim Mumford said. Mumford has developed a wall system to grow vegetables vertically. Watch the story here:// San Diego, California News Station – KFMB Channel 8 – cbs8.com Read more: http://www.cbs8.com/story/11923046/good-earth-plant-company-vertical-veggies

A Simple, Practical Solution – Voice of San Diego

| December 11, 2007 | Categories: Green Roofs, Living Walls, Media Coverage
Cities are facing climate change. Urban areas are warming up. Storm water overflow is contaminating beaches, bays, rivers and lakes. Development continues to encroach on the natural environment. Green roofs (or “eco-roofs”) provide a simple, practical solution to all these problems. Green roofs are an engineered, lightweight roofing system that supports plants. Green roof technology has been popular in Europe for 30 years, and is used in some North American cities including New York, Chicago, Toronto, and Portland, Oregon. But green roof technology is not well known in most of the United States and hardly at all in San Diego. Read more: http://voiceofsandiego.org/2007/12/11/a-simple-practical-solution/

Environment-US: Growing Oases in the Sky, IPS News Agency

| June 7, 2007 | Categories: Environment, Green Roofs, Media Coverage
SAN DIEGO, Jul 5 2007 (IPS) – An industrial park seems an unlikely location to find a native plant garden. “It’s mind-blowing,” says Jim Mumford, who ripped up his old roof and replaced it with something alive and verdant atop a small one-storey building that he’s converted into a haven for wayward butterflies and pollinating plants. As the founder and president of Good Earth Plant Co., a container plant and design firm, Mumford combines business acumen with the enthusiasm of an amateur naturalist. He wants to turn neglected urban landscapes into green space for workers and wildlife, beginning with his own commercial property in the gritty neighbourhood of Kearny Mesa, San Diego.… Read More

Businessman hopes rooftop vegetation will be a growing trend – Bend Weekly News, Bend, OR

| April 13, 2007 | Categories: Green Roofs, Media Coverage
In a gritty industrial section of San Diego, “plantscaper” Jim Mumford is putting down roots. On his roof. The result, which will come to life this morning, is an elevated oasis in a desert of concrete and metal. Trucks rumble below. Small planes buzz past wispy clouds above. On one recent afternoon, Mumford settled into a lawn chair on what he bills as the first vegetated roof on a commercial building in the county. “We’ve planted a seed,” said Mumford. Read more: http://www.bendweekly.com/Business/4783.html

First Green Roof Designed for San Diego – San Diego Earth Times

| April 1, 2007 | Categories: Environment, Green Roofs, Media Coverage
Though it is virtually unheard of in Southern California, Jim Mumford of Good Earth Plants in Kearny Mesa plans to demonstrate how to create a green roof specifically designed for San Diego. While creating a green retreat, Jim will be monitoring reduced energy usage and storm water runoff. Green roofs will be installed on two of the three buildings at Good Earth Plants. The third building will be kept as a control. Centrally located, the site is five miles from the Pacific Ocean and sits between the coastal and inland weather patterns. As evidence continues to mount that climate changes and polluted coastal waters have a negative effect on our environment, green roofs are being considered to improve the environmental and energy performance of buildings.… Read More