Meet Matt and Holly Finstrom | Owners, Bamboo Ranch Tucson

We had the good fortune of connecting with Matt and Holly Finstrom of Bamboo Ranch and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Matt and Holly, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
My husband hated his day job and we had a thriving hobby growing bamboo. Our property was small but otherwise ideal. There was local interest and we had the support of a national organization, the American Bamboo Society. We were lucky to get a lot of newspaper articles published about us in our (then) two Tucson newspapers and even got on local TV. We knew if we became a plant nursery we would need a water well, so we installed one. Meanwhile, my father researched bamboo nurseries and was told by many in California that we were crazy to try to sell bamboo in Tucson – too small a population, wrong climate, etc. Of course, we had to prove him wrong and try it. That was back in 2003.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Our bamboo plant nursery is a niche of a niche market. What sets us apart is we sell only one kind of plant – bamboo. But there are thousands of species, so we are the only bamboo specialty nursery in the Southwest. (There are many on the Pacific Coast). We didn’t take no for an answer and went ahead even though everyone told us we were crazy. 20 years later we are still going. We went to a business counselor at the community college small business incubator office. He told us we didn’t have enough land and also we were nuts. We did it anyway.

One hard lesson we learned along the way is don’t sell all your small plants. Keep them so they turn into larger plants.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
“The City” to me is Tucson, not Phoenix, so don’t know if you want this –

Madera Canyon
Desert Museum
Sabino Canyon
San Xavier Mission
Catalina Mountains
Fourth Avenue/Downtown Tucson
Tubac
Tumamoc
Tumacacori
Amado
Arizona Trail section south of Green Valley

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Grandpa Harry Brauer for telling us we couldn’t do it
Sara Lely and Douglas Taylor for help in purchasing additional land
Kit Lydick and family for helping us get started

Website: www.bambooranch.net

Instagram: bambooranchtucson

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bambooranchtucson

Youtube: https://youtu.be/mwGwO-mdPTg

Image Credits
Holly Finstrom