benefits of plants

How plants can improve our mental health, Part 1

  We’re more than a little biased, but plants can solve a lot of problems. Green roofs, for example, can absorb excess rainwater and help mitigate flooding. Plants provide our oxygen, our food, our fuel, and the materials we rely on. Plants even help solar panels create more energy. We know: plants are amazing.  We cannot survive without them.   Increasingly, research is showing that our leafy friends are helpful not only for our environment, but for our minds, as well. As rates of depression reach new heights worldwide, it turns out that plants can help with that, too. In a growing number of studies, spending time around and among plants and trees—even seeing photos of plants—has helped with everything from mental health to concentration, duration of illness to sense of purpose.… Read More

Your Summer Solstice Resolution: Get Outside

Longer hours of daylight and warmer weather naturally draw us outside more to enjoy it. We’ve been telling you for years this is a GOOD thing (with hats and sunscreen handy). So I had to laugh just a little when I read the Wall Street Journal this week. In an article on its Career and Leadership page, it featured a “new trend” for the coronavirus age: finding ways to hold work meetings in person by – meeting outside. News flash! The article reports workplaces setting up meetings in all kinds of outdoor spaces like parks, beaches, or even in private yards where social distancing and masks allow people to meet safely and get away from their screens and Zoom.… Read More

Bring the Heat: Indoor Plants That Like It Hot

indoor plants
Updated August 2022. It’s official: July 2022 blew through multiple all-time heart records. As United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has said, “We have always lived through hot summers. This is not your grandfather’s summer.” We are fortunate living in San Diego where the weather remains close to perfect most of the time, but even we’re feeling the heat and the humidity. If it seems more humid lately, it’s not your imagination. Warmer ocean temperatures generate more humidity. If only they’d generate a little rain! When you feel the heat, so do your plants. Hot summers can be rough on your plants, even your indoor plants.… Read More

Easiest Indoor Plants to Grow For Black Thumbs

We know you don't mean to kill your indoor plants. You just need to choose less fussy, bulletproof plants.
By now you’ve gotten the message: adding plants to your indoor environment at home and work provides multiple benefits to your physical and mental health. Study after study confirms plants clean your indoor air of toxins, raising humidity to healthier levels, increase the oxygen levels, buffer noise, calm your nerves and help you focus. And this is just for starters. “But Jim,” you say, “I have a black thumb. I’m a plant killer. I can’t grow ANYTHING. What can I do?” You can always hire a professional and leave it to us (hint). But there are some plants nearly impossible to kill.… Read More

Easter Comes Early for Good Earth Plant Company and Alpha Square

Jim Mumford and daughter Allie Mumford survey the bromeliads and orchids at the Alpha Square Apartments about to find new homes for Easter.
Easter came a little earlier than expected for Good Earth Plant Company, and for residents of the Alpha Square Apartment complex. Eco-Warrior Jim Mumford and daughter Allie Mumford delivered orchids and bromeliads to residents to brighten their homes. They were enthusiastically received with many smiles. Good Earth Plant Company also provided orchids to the San Diego Blood Bank as a donor premium. We received wonderful responses. If an orchid or bromeliad can convince someone to donate the gift of life, we are all for it. You can contact the San Diego Blood Bank to learn whether you are eligible to donate (most healthy adults are!)… Read More

San Diegans Prove Biophilia Is For Real

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

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

Indoor Plants Never Go Out of Style

Good Earth Plant Company has so many innovative ways to add plants to your interior design today, including spectacular moss walls.
When I opened my newspaper last Saturday, the headline practically yelled at me from the page: “Indoor greenery: house plants are back.” House plants are back? Back from where? Who is saying house plants ever went anywhere in the first place? I had to laugh. Yes, out loud. After 40 years in business providing plants for every kind of indoor space you can imagine, there hasn’t ever been a time when the interest by people to include plants in their offices and homes has gone away, or ever dropped. There are trends in display methods, and certain plants get “their moment” with a little rush of popularity.… Read More

In Business, Green is Good

  When did you last spend time outdoors? You might think everyone is outside enjoying summer weather and school vacations.  In San Diego, there’s hardly a day all year when you can’t be outside in short sleeves (or less). Buried in a report by the Environmental Protection Agency from 1989 is this shocking statistic: people in industrialized countries include the U.S. and Europe  spend more than 90 percent of their time indoors. Specifically, people spend 93 percent of their time indoors, with anther five percent in transit in a car or public transportation, and just two percent outside. I’d like to think this number is lower in San Diego, but even if it’s 80 percent, it’s still a sobering reality.… Read More

Hiring an Interior Plantscaping Service?

Good Earth Plant horticultural technicians Carlos and Marco install plants at the Alpha Project in San Diego serving homeless..
You’ve admired or flat out envied the beautiful plants in other offices, and you’ve read all about the many benefits of interior Plantscaping. So you have decided it’s time to improve your business or organization’s workspaces and hire a professional to help you. You’ve made a great decision. Even if this wasn’t the way I’ve earned a living for close to 40 years, I’d be just as enthusiastic about all the benefits you, your employees, and your customers and guests will enjoy as a result. Now in addition to everything else on your plate at work, you’re probably wondering how exactly how to go about hiring the right company to create the perfect green spaces in your home, office or building.… Read More