Koba’s Nursery

Beautiful plant nursery tucked away on the country side! Plants were cheaper here than any other plant shop I’ve been to. Plus you get to drive a gold cart around on 16 acres of land throughout Koba’s! This will definitely be the place for my plant shopping, I will be back!

This place is the best! The son of the owner personally took us around to show us whatever we were interested in.
We drove the go carts ourselves around the plantation, and they let us pick the flowers to get a sample of what we wanted.
¹⁰⁄₁₀ would recommend :) They’re wonderful people

don’t need to go anywhere else, best service (ask for Todd) best selection, prices are very good and you can drive thru shop with their carts so you don’t waste time, (which actually makes you shop faster you spend more money), but money well spent. this place is hands down best.

This is the very best nursery in all of Waimanalo! They have a wide variety of healthy plants and you are sure to find what you’re looking for.
Went there today and was thoroughly impressed by the service and courtesy of the workers. They found exactly what I needed for my garden despite not knowing the names of the plants. Just a brief description given and we were off and running on a golf cart, searching until we found the right plants for my project.
Mr. Koba was honest and fair when he surprised us with a big discount for purchasing plants that were recently placed in pots. Overall, the area was organized and we were serviced right away. We left smiling, more than satisfied and plan to return soon.

Wow. What a selection. We have been exploring the various and numerous nurseries in Waimanalo for a few months. And in terms of size and selection, Koba’s blows the others away. The place is so big that you have to take a golf cart to get around. So many plants and they even have some plants in various sizes/​stages of development. The only criticism I could give is two things — doesn’t seem to be organized in any particular way (but then again they may have a system that is not apparent to the weekend gardener like me) and the plants aren’t labelled so hard to tell them which plant you like, or have questions about, unless you bring the plant back with you to the office or bring one of the employees back with you to the plant. However, since the people there were so helpful and full of knowledge about the plants, you just need to find someone and ask. To make things easier we just took pictures of the plants we had questions about while perusing the massive selection and showed the pictures to the next Koba employee we came across and they were more than happy to answer our questions.
And prices are great! Definitely coming back.

As a townie, I hardly go to the countryside, or the boonies, as I call it. Over the years, though, I have found a lot of interesting stuff in the boonies. One of them is Koba’s Nursery in Waimanalo, which is on agriculture-​zoned land. Its kind of hard to find, as there is greenery no matter which way you turn. And to get there, you turn here, there, and here again, and there again… that’s why I call it the boonies. But what a gem of a nursery — I would go to the boonies anytime to go to Koba’s Nursery.
For the longest time, I was trying to spruce up my yard by planting some colorful plants. So off I went to Home Depot, Lowe’s, City Mill, Don Quiote, and a few local stores in town. All of them were very limited in their inventory, and the plants just didn’t look healthy and vibrant. Plus, the sales people could not answer my specific questions. After going back periodically, I still could not find anything that I really liked. A friend then referred me to a nursery in Waimanalo, Koba’s Nursery (as a townie, I wasn’t about to drive there myself; I had my friend drive me there… LOL!), .
I was in awe when I saw so many plants that were offered on their 16 acres of land. Some of the varieties were:
Trees — fern, tulip wood, orange koa
Palms — Areca, Manilla, Macarthur
Shrubs & flowering plants — hibiscus, ixora, gardenia, ti, anthurium, grapette (slight fragrance of grapes!), ginger, croton
Ground covers — dwarf juniper, grapette, heather
Ferns — lauae, kupukupu, palapalai

As I’m by no means a plant expert, I did not know what I had wanted, other than colorful flowering plants that were easy to take care of. The owner of the nursery, Carl Kobashigawa (that’s where Koba’s come from), took me on a grand tour in a golf cart so that I could see the the hundreds of different types of plants that he
his nursery. I thought that was cool — riding in a golf cart at a nursery (instead of walking)!
Since then, I’ve gone a number of times when I needed plants. Here’s what I thought about my experiences in getting plants from this nursery:
— Carl, as well as his two assistants, Greg and Lettie, are very knowledgeable about their plants (he also has other workers that tend to the many plants). They helped me select the plants I wanted by asking me certain things, such as where I had planned to plant them, as they didn’t want me to get a plant that would grow too big for the area intended. They informed me of the necessary sunlight, fertilizers, watering, soil, and pesticide care that certain plants require and if I were willing to follow the necessary care instructions. Based on what I told them, they advised me as to whether or not to get certain plants.
— Carl and staff gave me their honest opinions, as they wanted to ensure that the plants would grow well (I’m sure that if they didn’t, my plants would have since died, and I would probably never buy from them again).
— As they have an inventory of each plant, they took the time to choose the best plants of the lot, instead of randomly selecting the plants that I had wanted to purchase.
Now that’s what I call excellent customer service!
During the times I’ve been there, I also found out:
— If Koba’s does not have the plants that you want or what they recommend, they will refer you to another nursery to purchase them.
— If the plants that you want are at a lesser cost at another nursery, they will send you to the other nursery to buy them if Koba’s is unable to match the lower cost.
— Prices are reasonable at Koba’s Nursery and are at a lower cost than at the retail stores because you are going straight to the grower (as compared to buying a plant at a store and knowing that the store will have to take its cut).
— Koba’s sells his plants to landscaper companies and to the public like you and me only; none of their plants are sold to retail stores.
Koba’s Nursery is a wholesale and retail business, and has been around for more than 20 years. I was so happy to get the plants that were selected for me — purple grapettes, white and red anthuriums, orange ixora, red ti, and dwarf junipers. (See my grapette and ixora photos to see how well they’re doing and compare them with the grapette plant seedling and potted ixora that I initially bought from Koba’s.) Their excellent service is so personalized, and they have such knowledgeable staff that regular stores do not have the time or expertise to provide. And their plants are so healthy and green.
Just don’t go to Koba’s Nursery when it’s raining or after a big rain — sloshing in the mud, tracking mud into your car, and having your car tires packed with mud can be a total mess and pain. On any other day, this will be an excuse for this townie to become more familiar with the boonies!

We were shopping for anthuriums for the garden and decided to visit Koba’s Nursery. It’s a huge place with all kinds of different plants from indoor to plants you would use to landscape outdoor areas. They let you use a golf cart and you can roam the many acres of plants they have for sale, you just load up the ones you’re interested in purchasing and bring them to the office whenever you’re ready. They are also very knowledgeable, helpful and friendly. It’s a little hard to find, but it’ll be well worth the effort!