Our Story

It started with a name, long before it started with plants.

I began using Okanoka as a brand when I was still in college. Back then, I sold a little bit of everything — stickers, binders, clothes, shoes, and whatever else I thought people might enjoy.

The products changed, but I kept the name.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I always hoped that one day Okanoka would become something bigger — something I could continue carrying with me wherever life took me.

I just did not know yet that it would eventually become a plant business shipping from Indonesia to people around the world.

Plants Found Me During COVID

Before Okanoka became a plant business, I worked as a translator.

Then COVID happened.

Schools closed, companies became more careful with spending, and translation work slowed down. Like many people during that time, life suddenly became much quieter and much more uncertain.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I started adopting plants.

They made me happy.

I began sharing them online, mostly because I genuinely enjoyed them. Then people started asking:

So I tried selling a few.

What started casually became domestic plant sales through Facebook and Instagram. One plant became another, then another order, then another customer.

At first, Okanoka was still very much a small local plant business.

And the plants were everywhere around our house — especially across the terrace.

Then my husband, Afif, had an idea:

Neither of us had a ready-made guide explaining how to export live plants internationally.

So we started learning.

We researched requirements, documents, quarantine procedures, shipping routes, packing methods, and everything else involved in getting a living plant safely from Indonesia to another country.

There was a lot to figure out.

But eventually, the first plants left Indonesia.

And Okanoka began travelling.

From the Terrace to a Greenhouse

As international orders grew, the space we had quickly stopped being enough.

The terrace was already full. Then the plants started taking over more and more of the house.

Eventually, even our garage could no longer comfortably hold all the plants waiting to be checked, prepared, and shipped.

That was when we realized Okanoka needed more than another table or another corner of the house.

We needed a proper space that could grow with the business.

So we started thinking bigger — a dedicated place where we could organize plants more carefully, prepare larger orders, and manage international shipments without turning our whole house into a temporary greenhouse.

That became the next chapter of Okanoka.

From plants covering our terrace and garage, we moved toward having a space built around what the business had become.

From Indonesia, But Not From the Jungle

There is one thing we want to make very clear about the plants we sell.

We do not take plants from the jungle.

The plants sold through Okanoka are sourced from nurseries and growers.

Indonesia has a large plant-growing community, from small independent growers to established nurseries producing tropical plants for collectors and businesses.

Being based here gives us the opportunity to work within that network, find interesting plants, and connect Indonesian-grown plants with customers overseas.

For us, “plants from Indonesia” should not mean plants taken from forests.

It means plants grown here, sourced through nurseries, prepared here, and shipped from Indonesia.

The People Behind Okanoka

Okanoka is run by Noka and Afif.

Noka handles much of the day-to-day business, customers, planning, and the many small things that somehow appear every day when you run a plant company.

Afif works closely with the plants themselves — sourcing, checking plant quality, preparing exports, and handling many of the technical parts behind getting plants ready to leave Indonesia.

Over time, Okanoka has grown beyond the two of us, with people helping with administration, greenhouse work, packing, documentation, and export preparation.

But it is still a very hands-on business.

The plants you see online eventually become actual plants laid out in front of us — checked, prepared, labelled, documented, packed, and sent on their way.

And Then There Are the Greenhouse Cats

Of course, Okanoka also has several unofficial team members.

All of our greenhouse cats were rescues, and somehow each of them developed a very specific personality — and their own interpretation of what it means to “help” at work.

Abu eventually found his forever home.

Panpan disappeared one day. We like to think Panpan simply decided that life outside was more interesting and chose a different adventure.

Simba comes and goes as he pleases. He is missing four canine teeth, which makes him look considerably less intimidating than he probably believes he is. He is an extremely soft boy.

And then there are the siblings, Blacky and Yenyen.

Blacky absolutely loves the outside world and has a talent for finding trouble. He likes exploring, disappearing for a while, and returning as if nobody was supposed to worry about him.

Yenyen is the complete opposite. He is a proper homebody who rarely wants to go outside — but when Blacky leaves, Yenyen will sometimes cry as if his brother has gone on a six-month expedition instead of just stepping outside.

They do help with the plants, though.

Their inspection method is slightly different from ours.

It usually involves walking between the pots, sniffing something very seriously, sitting exactly where somebody needs to work, and occasionally staring at a plant as if they have discovered a problem nobody else noticed.

So technically, Okanoka has its own team of feline plant inspectors.

We just have not figured out how to put their signatures on the phytosanitary documents yet.

They have become part of everyday life at Okanoka — through the busy packing days, greenhouse mornings, quiet afternoons, and all the ordinary moments in between.

They were not part of the business plan.

But neither were many of the best parts of this story.

What Happens Before a Plant Leaves Indonesia

International plant shipping is much more than putting a plant into a box.

Before an export shipment leaves Indonesia, there are plants to prepare, documents to arrange, inspections to complete, roots to pack, boxes to organize, and shipping details to coordinate.

Plants undergo the required Indonesian Plant Quarantine inspection, and phytosanitary documentation is prepared before export.

After inspection, the plants are packed bare-root with sphagnum moss and prepared for international transit.

Some shipment days involve only a few plants.

Others can involve hundreds.

Either way, every shipment goes through a real process before it leaves us.

For a closer look at the export process, visit How Shipping Works.

From Our Greenhouse to Around the World

What began as domestic plant sales has gradually grown into international shipments for individual plant lovers, collectors, shops, nurseries, businesses, and larger-volume buyers.

Based on our recorded Okanoka shipments from 2023 to 2026, we have shipped more than 27,000 plants, completed more than 1,000 international shipments, and reached 38+ countries.

In the United States alone, our records include 700+ shipments reaching 44 states, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico.

Our largest recorded shipment to a single address contained 530 plants.

Those numbers still feel a little strange when we remember that all of this started with me posting plants online during COVID.

But behind every number is still what we started with:

You can explore our recorded destinations and shipment history on Where We’ve Shipped and our Shipment Archive.

Okanoka Today

Today, Okanoka continues to connect people around the world with tropical plants grown in Indonesia.

Sometimes that means helping someone find one plant they have been searching for.

Sometimes it means preparing dozens or hundreds of plants for a business.

Sometimes it means helping someone who loves Indonesian plants but has no idea where to begin with international shipping.

And sometimes it simply means answering a message from someone on the other side of the world who saw a plant and thought:

We are still learning, improving, finding new plants, meeting new growers, and adjusting the way we work as Okanoka grows.

A lot has changed since the days when plants filled our terrace.

But the idea behind the business has stayed surprisingly close to the original one:

find something we love, share it with other people, and keep building Okanoka along the way.

Welcome to Okanoka

Whether you are looking for one plant for your collection, exploring plants grown in Indonesia, or sourcing plants for a shop, nursery, or business, we are glad you found us.

There is a lot that happens between choosing a plant in Indonesia and opening that box at your home.

For us, every shipment begins here — with growers, plants, people, paperwork, packing tables, a greenhouse, and occasionally a cat checking whether everything looks acceptable.

Then the box leaves Indonesia and continues its journey to someone we may have never met, somewhere far away.

It still amazes us that a plant that was once sitting here can eventually become part of somebody else’s home, collection, shop, or greenhouse on the other side of the world.

Plants found me during a difficult and uncertain time, and somehow they made things feel a little happier.

Maybe that is still one of the simplest reasons behind Okanoka.

We hope the plants that leave us can bring a little happiness to the people who receive them too.