Care instructions for your Niwaki plant

Placing, training and maintenance

Congratulations on choosing an ArtiZen plant sculpture!

Here at ArtiZen we give you the finished structure and architecture of your chosen plant. All you have to do is nurture the existing shape, and let the branches develop to their full, mature potential.

We also consider where the plants will go once they leave the nursery, choosing plant varieties that love full sun situations or will tolerate a bit more shade. Others can be a little wind-prone and some are as tough as nails. Just ask us for any planting advice and we will do the best we can to help you find the right plant.

All our plants have been grown outside in our nursery near Katikati and can cope with our local weather conditions.
Your plant has been made from a cutting no later than 2015 and now comes in a 60 liter pot or larger. It may have plant supports on some of its branches which should not be removed until the branch has set in its desired position (which may take several years).

Shaping instruction

• Take a photo of your plant when you first receive it, this will give you a shaping guide for the future.
• If your plant is cloud-pruned (elongated pads), keep training the pads so that the underside is flat, the top rounded, the tip blunt and the trunk end wider than the tip end. The overall effect is that of a blunt wedge or you can think of the overall picture as clouds stacked on top of each other.
• The apex, or very top of your plant, should resemble a mushroom with a domed top and a flat under-side.
• If your plant is a pom-pom you should aim for a ball-shape at the end of the side branches and a ball-shape crowning the top or apex of your plant.

Care instructions

• If you intend to keep your plant in a pot it will need regular watering and plant food. As a rule of thumb, conifers need less water/nutrient than most other plants and should have excellent drainage both in pots and in the ground.
• Please ask your supplier for the ideal growing requirements for your plant (i.e., should it have a full sun or part shade position; is it susceptible to wind or frost damage, etc.).
• As with any other plant, insect, bacterial or fungal damage can occur. Your local Garden Centre can advice you on products to deal with these.

I hope that you will get many years of enjoyment from your plant sculpture. It is a unique plant and has been grown with the utmost care and attention to detail.

Claudia Gorringe