Kalapana Tropicals Inc.

I ordered from Kalapana several times, and I was never very impressed. I do not order from there anymore. The orchids I received (mostly Oncidium intergenerics) were poorly rooted in their pots. The pseudobulbs were severely shriveled, such that they were almost flat. Upon unpotting the plants to inspect the root heath, I found that the plants had few to no live roots. The thing that bothers me most about this is that the plants were visibly in poor condition. Somebody had to pack those plants into the box, and that person could have easily seen that the plants were in bad shape, but instead of contacting me and telling me and asking me if I wanted to change or cancel my order, this person went ahead and put the visibly sick plants in the box and shipped them to me anyway. That is dishonest, and that is horrible customer care. If they cared about their customers, they would not send visibly sick plants. I have a friend who routinely tests every new acquisition to his collection for viruses. I had him test three plants that I bought from Kalapana, and they all tested positive for virus. Every single one of them. I don't feel like I can trust Kalapana to give me good value for my money when I buy plants from them that i cannot see first. If I had been visiting the greenhouse and had seen those plants that they sent me, I never would have bought them. And all of the Oncidiums I've bought from them were in the same condition, and these were several orders over a period of time, so this is not an isolated incident. This is apparently how they do business. They know your plant is sick, but they send it to you anyway, knowing you probably won't complain because people don't like to complain, and it takes too much effort to ask for a replacement plant or a refund. I won't shop here again. It's just easier to do that than to try to fight with a company that doesn't want to give you your money back. It's usually not worth the fight. But for the record, no plant I have ever bought from Kalapana is still alive.

I love, love, love, love this company. I have never ever had a bad experience with them. They always respond to my emails. I have boughten from them several times and will continue to buy from them. The plants are so healthy. The nursery near my home sells their orchids and I decided to check out their website. Now I buy directly from them. This is a great company, you will never be disappointed in any orchid that you purchase from them.

Have received two orders, both well packed and in excellent condition. Size of plants is very impressive. Most recent order was four orchids. All are in spike and good condition. Took four days from placing of order to receipt in Maine, about as far from Hawaii in the US as you can get. Only slight negative is that there seems to be a fairly limited variety of plants available but it does seem to change regularly. Will definitely order from them again.

This was my first time ordering from this company, and first time ordering orchids from Hawaii. I had assumed that it was a bit too far to receive plants here on the East Coast in good shape. This company changed my mind! The three orchids I ordered arrived in GREAT shape. Hawaii loves orchids . . . they looked lush and beautiful. Moss on the bark chips, robust looking leaves and pseudobulbs, incredibly well packed, and arrived two day FedEx which was not any more expensive than other companies regular shipping charges. Great communication via e-mail rounded out this very positive experience.