Store History

In the Beginning...

We intended the focus of our company to be on research and development (R&D) of new plant cultivars for sustainable cultivation and novel products to be made from them. We didn’t plan to operate a retail nursery and we would still like to avoid that. But over the years our ongoing work and changes in research priorities generated surplus plants and most of these were donated to nonprofit organizations for fundraisers. It probably took us too long realize it but giving away most of our only products wasn’t a sound business plan. Our research and development projects are costly, long term efforts and aren’t likely to generate significant revenue in the near future, so for now, our only products for sale are these plants and seeds.

Reopening the Store

With great trepidation we decided to reopen our online plant store. This store will also provide a way of distributing seeds from our new International Moringa Seed Bank. We know that opening the store will present many of the same challenges that other small online business face ranging from limited staff, space and resources to managing a website in an increasingly hostile cybersecurity environment. The nature of our business brings additional and more daunting problems: growing rare plants in an alien environment with many invasive pests and diseases, and complying with a complex and ever changing array of regulations and plant quarantine orders. Our remote location is far from major markets and round trip travel to the nearest cities with plant inspection stations or sources of nursery, packing and shipping supplies consumes a minimum of four hours. With these constraints order processing costs will be high and it will sometimes be difficult to fill orders in a timely manner.

Unique Offerings

On the positive side our R&D projects have produced a unique inventory of plants, some of which are not available from other sources. Our collection of non-hybrid, several year old Socotra Island Roses (Adenium socotranum) is probably the largest known. These make excellent bonsai subjects. Some of our specimen size plants such as the rare species Pachypodium ambongense (common names Betono or Songosongo) from Madagascar do not appear to be available anywhere else. Later in 2019 we are planning to begin sales of Hoodia seeds and seedlings from our extensive inventory of new and improved varieties.

Getting Started

Some say the Menehune are a mischievous people and most active at night when much of our website content gets prepared. As the store operations began a number of mysterious glitches appeared and sometimes they come back even after we think they have been fixed.  So we will have to continue requesting your patience and understanding as we work through these. If you encounter website issues or have questions about our store please contact us.

Mahalo!

Thank you for visiting our store.