Hi, I’m Michael and I started Pueblo.
Pueblo really got its start in 2015 as a little booth called Bosque at the Phoenix Public Market. Our founder, Michael Lanier, was selling candles and plants, at the end of a pivotal market day. While loading up his Pontiac Aztek with unsold merchandise, an entire crate of candles had melted in the sun and poured all over his shoes and pants. That was a pivotal moment, as Bosque found a retail space and moved inside two months later.
From there we grew slowly in a little suite on 3rd St. and Roosevelt, across from where Wilderness is now. By 2017 we’d moved over to a beautiful old pharmacy building in the Garfield Neighborhood as Pueblo - Spanish for Community, and Coby Bruckner became a business partner - a great mix since he has an extensive background, and degreee, in Landscape Architecture.
By 2018 we began working on our current location along Grand a block or so from where we both live. We had a goal that this would truly be a community space.
Who We Are
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While we'll never be perfect, we always aim to exist as sustainably as possible. It's why our spaces are always so historic and unique. At Pueblo we source plants from reputable growers and ensure what we carry will survive in a “normal” home and is acclimated properly to our climate. We source our inventory regionally. Our aim is to be ecologically friendly, and we're really proud of what we've been able to do in the hottest major city in the Americas.
We utilize passive technologies such as shade, xeric planting and an intelligent irrigation system in our garden. all our water systems are low-flow and we recycle water to water our garden and fill our smallest pond. Our AC's have an 80% efficiency vs central air and our hot water heater utilizes a heat pump to pull heat from the air. Alone these are all small things, but together they make us as efficient as we can be. -
Phoenix is at the very northern reach of the Sonoran Desert - which is both the newest and wettest desert on earth. The end of the contiguous American subtropics lie in our desert, which means we have some incredible animals blurring the lines between tropics and our colder mountains to the north.
Arizona is home to the last Jaguar population in the United States, and one of the last populations of Ocelots. Until recently we had one of the only populations of American Parrots north of Mexico, and we hope by having such a charismatic creature at the forefront we can spur a conversation out of curiosity about incredible impact humans, and their borders, have on nature. -
Pueblo means community. We provide a living wage to a core team and we stick to what we know: Plants, People and Place. We offer healthcare + Vision and Dental, unlimited time off, opportunities to grow and PTO that resets every year on day 1 fully available to use.
Unlike a larger nursery or big-box store, we rely almost entirely on selling quality small goods that are sourced from growers with the highest quality, care and consistent pruning possible.