Tall, beautiful and lean—bamboo’s popularity has moved the green world along in more ways than one.

With new species springing up across the globe, bamboo is actually a member of the grass family, said Matthew Finstrom, the owner of Bamboo Ranch. Like other grasses, bamboo comes in two forms, running and clumping.

Ranging in all sizes, running bamboos can grow in the lowest of temperatures, making them the hardiest. They can also fill in a large area, growing in places where they are watered, and are great if you want to create a grove that you can walk through, Finstrom said.

Clumping bamboos on the other hand do just that—mingle in tight clumps, like a tree. They, too, range in all sizes, but grow in tropical temperatures. Finstrom said these bamboos tend to grow faster than running bamboos and are meant to accompany a small garden. The wood of clumping bamboos is harder than running bamboos as well.

“Since bamboo is a grass, it regenerates so quickly. If you cut down a stock, it just grows more, which is great,” Finstrom said. “They’ll go from zero to full height in 60 days.”

As a native Tucsonan and bamboo grower for the past 21 years, Finstrom’s Bamboo Ranch, at 1901 N. Avenida Azahar, has been a growing bamboo business for the past four years. It carries around 140 of the world’s 1,200 described bamboo species. Finstrom gives tours of the ranch by appointment only. He sells the bamboo he grows, and has a gift shop that carries a variety of bamboo products.

Finstrom first saw bamboo growing in Tennessee, and when he took a trip to Panama, he saw bamboo again. After viewing it in different places, he decided to grow bamboo. At first, growing bamboo was “mostly for music” he said, to build flutes.

“When bamboo makes their shoots, they shoot once a year, so you can get a lot of use out of the growth,” Finstrom said.

But building flutes is only one of the many uses of bamboo.

Considered a jungle plant, bamboo contributes towards many outdoor uses such as reducing the pollen load, acting as a large filter. Bamboo also makes a very good windbreak, dust-break, noise-break, privacy screen and acts as a shade, Finstrom said.

He said the best reason for growing bamboo is because, “not only is it the fastest growing land plant, but there’s a big issue with sequestering carbon in plants, and there’s no faster way to do that, than through bamboo.”


Additional, or “side benefits” of bamboo, Finstrom said, include medicines made from the wax of bamboo, and beer and wine made from mulched bamboo seeds. Furniture, jewelry, frames, dishes, utensils and bamboo fiber for clothing are also benefits of bamboo, all of which are sold in the Bamboo Ranch gift shop.

“Bamboo fiber is four times more absorbent than cotton, way cooler and softer to wear and it’s naturally anti-bacterial,” Finstrom said. “Also, shirts, socks, underwear, whatever, are odor resistant, and the fiber is also an anti-oxidant, so cutting boards, bowls and things actually keep your food fresh.”


Bamboo uses span even farther than outdoor uses and unique side benefits.

Interior design incorporates numerous bamboo products, promoting an eco-friendly environment inside the home.

Originate Natural Building Materials, at 526 N. Ninth Ave., carries bamboo products that enhance not only design, but encourage going green indoors.

Natasha Winnik, owner of Originate, sells bamboo plywood, venires, tambour paneling, flooring, butcher blocks and leftover items from a previously run boutique, such as bowls, utensils, plates and baskets.

“Bamboo is innately beautiful with great features like its texture, color, pattern, and it’s really striking,” Winnik said. “It has a beautiful quality, it’s long, it’s linear, but it has these little bumps, or nodes and the colors are different. My desk is bamboo, and I love having it in bamboo and using it.”

Also adoring bamboo at work and home, Eddie McPheeters, one of the Catalina Heights Nursery owners, 6074 E. Pima St., has his patio lined with bamboo flooring, where a circular cutout of the flooring has been removed for bamboo stocks to grow through.

McPheeters sells seven to eight species of bamboo and said that most customers purchasing the bamboo use it to make instruments.

“Bamboo is strong,” McPheeters said. “Some of the bamboo busted open the canisters in which they were placed in.”

Maturing in about seven years, bamboo needs to be harvested routinely for its maintenance. But with numerous uses for bamboo and its rapid involvement in the green movement, its supply depletion is concerning to Finstrom.

“It’s a battle to preserve bamboo before they’re gone. Bamboo is by no means assured a clear future,” he said. “It’s really good because it regenerates, but I don’t think anything can keep up with humans. We’re the ultimate beavers when it comes to chopping plants down.”

Considering bamboo as a “new product,” Winnik doesn’t exactly see bamboo as being in danger, though it’s used in multiple products to go greener inside the home.

“Our knowledge of bamboo is really on the forefront … it’s in fashion, hip, trendy, that people think of it more,” she said. “I don’t think that we’re using it more, but the reality is that it’s always been used in Asia, and the difference is that we’re a global culture, and we’re exporting it and using it throughout Europe and America, more than we ever have, so it’s more readily available.”

Though bamboo has become a best seller in the green world, and considered “the new wood” with differing views on whether it’s running out, its greenness is questioned since importing it uses more energy than growing it nationally and locally.

As far as an environmental movement, if a turnaround is going to be made, shipping things all over the world has to be stopped, Finstrom said.

“You’re going to have to brew good beer here, than to ship it from Germany," Finstrom added. "You’re going to have to make good textiles here, rather than to ship them from China."

Winnik shares similar feelings.

“The green movement allows us to analyze our resources, and hopefully that will enable future generations to make an impact, so that we don’t deplete all of our resources in our lifetime,” she said.