PLANT SOURCING: We with only licensed plant brokers & growers, we also ensure our plants aren't illegally poached- a practice that puts biodiversity around the world at risk.
EDUCATION: By providing thorough care information and education to our customers, you're not only empowered to care for your plants, but this reduces waste through fewer dead plants. We encourage everyone to focus on the plants best suited for their space and lifestyle in hopes of again reducing waste through dead plants or excess plants.
PRODUCT SOURCING: Although sourcing all product locally is most sustainable, we also value offering products that are accessible to everyone which means we have to strike a balance between handmade/locally sourced items and affordable items. Our approach with any mass-produced items is to ensure the companies we work with, and the factories they work with, produce their goods as sustainably and ethically as possible, treat their people well, and pay fair wages. We also now avoid goods from any supplier who doesn't have a North American distribution center- in order to avoid the increased emissions that come along with shipping smaller packages internationally. We also arrange our shipments be sent to us in the lowest packing material intensive way possible- often having to wait for enough product to be in stock to have it sent freight rather than FedEx, etc since those smaller shipments usually mean more packing materials and emissions.
GIVING: We donate 100% of the proceeds from our Seconds Sale items to our non-profit partner, Climate Resolve. We're honored to support Climate Resolve in their work helping communities around Los Angeles build climate resilience. As we're able, we also support other environmental & climate change focused organizations like Earth Justice, Nature For All, and Casa Pueblo.
PEAT & PERLITE FREE POTTING MIXES: Though every potting medium comes with downsides, two common components- peat moss and perlite have serious enough environmental costs that we decided to eliminate it from the potting mixes we sell and use on our potting bench. Peat moss bogs are the largest terrestrial carbon sink, storing more carbon than all other vegetation in the world combined. Peat bogs are also a kind of wetland, which are crucial to efforts to minimize the effect of climate change, ensure clean drinking water, and protect the species that call peat bogs home. Perlite mining & production uses more energy and creates more emissions than pumice mining since perlite is found deeper down than pumice and requires more processing. In addition to eliminating peat & perlite from our potting mixes, we took the opportunity to address a few other environmental costs of many potting mixes as well:
LOCAL. All of the components of our potting mixes (including our coco coir) come from California or Northern Mexico sources. Product travels fewer miles, cutting down on emissions and packaging. We also drive our fuel efficient PHEV to go pick up the materials, further cutting down on emissions.
LOW WASTE. With the exception of the worm castings, all of the components are never packaged, so there is minimal plastic waste.
PLASTIC-FREE PACKAGING. Our bags are made of recycled content paper, with plant based film liners. They are commercially compostable (just remove the label and tin tie first), and even in a landfill will break down much more quickly than a plastic bag.
We know our industry has a long way to go to reduce the impact we have on the planet, but we're committed to doing as much as we can and working to encourage others in the horticulture world to do the same.
