Statement Trees and Edgar Landscaping are two gardening businesses hoping to grow their profile within the Ōamaru community.

Statement Trees is a business that keeps growing and shooting off in different directions, just like the plants it sells.

Now the nursery, with its roots 7km south of Ōamaru on State Highway 1, has branched out to the town's main street with a September pop-up shop.

“We started wholesale and then realised there's huge demand in North Otago for nurseries, and we needed to start marketing,” Diane Lee, who owns the business with her husband Trevor, says.

Edgar Landscaping has been operating in Ōamaru for three years - and is owned by Shelley and Michael “Ed” Edgar. 

Ed has more than 15 years’ landscaping experience, and the couple started the business after moving south from Auckland with their two children, to be closer to family.

They have joined Statement Trees in the pop-up shop and both businesses hope to raise awareness around the services they can offer, and to connect with the local community.

The shop is in the former Health 2000 premises between Paper Plus and the Badger & Mackerel on Thames Street.

Diane says the feedback from the public so far has been great.

Diane and Trevor Lee at Statement Trees, near Totara. Photo: Supplied

"People just popping in saying it looks fabulous and offering support. So that's been really nice," she says.

The shop is part of the Waitaki District Council-driven Revitalise Our Places Ōamaru (Ropō) initiative, where the council acts as broker between landlords of empty Thames Street premises, and business owners, to make the town centre more vibrant.

Statement Trees has a selection of more mature trees, hence the name, and Trevor specialises in cloud pruning, for a point of difference.

“So it's in the Bonsai family cloud pruning, and it just means you are not restricting the roots, so it grows. So it's normal size, but you manipulate it,” Diane says.

A small selection of handmade outdoor furniture crafted by Kakanui man Lindsay Murray is also in store.

Trevor and Diane have been in business 10 years this year, and began by selling the large-grade trees wholesale.

Another nursery business which closed led them to wholesaling natives in one-litre containers, which is now their “bread and butter”, as they supply bulk lots to mostly Mitre 10 stores, from Christchurch to Central Otago, she says.

Shelley says she and Ed decided to be part of the pop-up so they could showcase past projects, and give people ideas of what they could do in their gardens. 

Ed offers a range of services which range from restoring and installing lawns, to large-scale native planting jobs, and anything in between. He also works with a qualified builder, so outdoor construction such as stairs.

His dream job would be to be presented with a blank canvas of bare land, he says.

“It's not like one particular thing, it's more like the total. If someone came to me and goes, ‘every square inch I want it polished to perfection, here's $250,000’ - that's what I like doing.”

The pop-up shop is open weekdays from 10am to 4pm, and on some Saturdays Trevor will be in the store to answer questions.

Some of the plants and trees at Statement Trees.