metropolitan habitats

Price Drops Mean Green Roofs for All

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

Living Architecture: Beyond the Eye

GreenScaped Buildings designed and installed this living wall for The Irvine Company, an excellent example of "Nature In The Space."
There are so many benefits of living walls and green roofs, but you don’t have to take our word for it. The Summer 2014 issue of Living Architecture Monitor magazine features businesses which have recently installed living architecture discussing the improvements in the health and well-being of employees, as well as a positive side effect: increased property values. GreenScaped Buildings client Irvine Company Office Properties is included in the article, “How Green Roofs & Walls Have Impacted Building Occupants’ Well-Being,” Irvine Company manager Sherry Mashadian explains, “The living wall is definitely one of the greater features to the building and added value to the project.… Read More

Cleaning the Polluted Air: Easy as Planting a Tree

If we don't address our pollution issues and clean our air NOW, we could all end up living under a dome.
Life provides too many distractions: phone calls, emails and everything on Facebook. When time allows my thoughts to wander beyond my little world, many times it rests upon how we can improve the environment or at the least, reduces our negative impact on it. Almost always, plants find their way into my ideas for helping the situation in one way or another. The recent wildfires in San Diego County brought clouds of black smoke, ash and the loss of primarily native vegetation in undeveloped areas. Our first responders are working hard to contain the danger, but not without the loss of trees and habitat.… Read More

Jim Mumford’s Tree Benefits You Never Knew

My time spent growing up in San Diego in the 1960s and 70s was pretty close to perfect. There were always a gang of guys around for fun and adventure and the canyon behind my home provided the perfect giant trees for climbing, fort-building and tire-swinging. The canyon’s trees acted as sturdy protectors of my childhood and I never dreamed that someday those same trees might be endangered. Trees provide a multitude of benefits. Things you would never even think about. Did you know trees can help reduce violence? Neighborhoods and homes that lack trees have a higher rate of violence in and out of the home than their greener counterparts.… Read More

GreenScaped Buildings: Top Five Green Roofs and Living Walls Trends

Take a look at our latest: the innovative living wall at LPL Financial including a flat screen TV display.
If I am still awake at 11:45 p.m., I am compelled to prop my eyes open long enough to catch late night talk show host David Letterman’s “Top Ten List.” He keeps things light while skating right on the edge of being controversial. Good stuff! While my list isn’t quite as edgy or as long, my Top Five Green Roofs and Living Walls Trends are a cool way to quickly catch up on what’s new in our industry. The benefits of having a green roof are tremendous, from long-term energy savings to being just plain beautiful. It’s a growing niche business and we are proud as parents when one gets completed and is up and growing on its own.… Read More

Hospitals “Greening Up” Healthcare

One of the patient rooms' at Sharp Memorial Hospital that looks out over the Good Earth Plants "green roof."
If you have visited a friend of family member in a hospital, chances are you brought them flowers or a plant. Why? Besides being a thoughtful gesture, studies have shown that plants play an important role in the healing process. Viewing settings with plants or nature for a few minutes can promote measurable restoration even in hospital patients who are acutely stressed. Patients heal more quickly, use less pain medication and complain less to staff. (Ulrich, 2002) I have read lots and lots of studies about plants and healing during my years in the plant industry. This is serious science and can be summed up in one sentence: Plants make us FEEL GOOD.… Read More

New Living Wall at LPL Financial in San Diego

Take a look at our latest: the innovative living wall at LPL Financial including a flat screen TV display.
LPL Financial in downtown San Diego wanted something amazing for a high visibility area. The idea grew into a two-sided living wall of greenery surrounding a flat screen on one side. The 360-degree installation came with a few challenges, easily met by the GreenScaped team led by Project Manager Kerry Bauer. With plants located above and adjacent to the TV, multiple precautions were designed into the system to prevent any possibility of water reaching the electronic components. “The LPL Financial living wall represents a collaboration among Gensler Architects, Whiting Turner Construction and the team at GreenScaped Buildings to commit to a forward-thinking, sustainable project,” says GreenScaped Buildings owner Jim Mumford.… Read More

See Jim Mumford and Good Earth Plant Company tonight on KPBS-TV

Jim Mumford and Nan Sterman, KPBS TV
See Jim Mumford of Good Earth Plants on “A Growing Passion” tonight on KPBS  Thursday, February 6, 8:30 p.m. KPBS Channel 15 Cox Cable 1011 HD Time Warner Cable 711 HD Green roofs were once a novelty.  No more! Today, they are gaining popularity thanks to their ability to capture runoff and keep it from polluting beaches and bays, to moderate temperatures inside the buildings they top, reduce atmospheric heating, and offer a beautiful, interesting, even healing alternative to an expanse of glaring, bare rooftop. Nan Sterman, host of “A Growing Passion” on KPBS-TV, visits green roofs large and small across San Diego County including a few of Jim Mumford’s favorites created by Good Earth Plant Company and GreenScaped Buildings for our clients.… Read More

Recharging and Growing in Florida to Start 2014 Fresh

January means it’s time to recharge. Holiday decorations need to be put away, tax forms start arriving and invariably a resolution or two gets made and then broken. With all the stuff going on that a new year brings, I will count on recharging during a trip down to Florida for the TPIE event in Ft. Lauderdale. Sun, fun and endless displays of orchids and ginger plants greet me at TPIE, which stands for the Tropical Plant Industry Exhibition. It is a wonderful gathering of tropical (and other) plant professionals from 33 countries and 44 states, all geared up to show off the latest things growing and the things that help make them grow.… Read More

Good Earth Plants Leaflet Newsletter: Winter 2014 Edition

Click here to read our Good Earth Plant Company Winter 2014 edition of the Good Earth Leaflet newsletter. In this issue: Letter from the President Upcoming Events Featured Project: ActivCare Chula Vista Employee Spotlight: Celso Gomez Lunch & Learn Program (Continuing Education Units) Not on our newsletter email list? Want to sign up? Visit the home page of our website and scroll to the end of the page to provide us your email address.