Picton artist Pita Lagan will return to Oamaru this month to continue carving the steampunk playground's macrocarpas.
And soon, all five of what once were ''shabby trees'' will have been transformed into public art in the popular park.
Former Waitaki mayor Alan McLay, who initiated the project to re-use the stumps of the felled trees, said he expected the carving of the fourth tree to be ''well under way'' when the Oamaru Stone Symposium began on October 24.
Mr Lagan began carving the first three of the 6m stumps at the Friendly Bay park in October 2013, and in July, Mr McLay launched a campaign to raise up to $14,000 to finish the job; fundraising was ongoing.
But the $7000 Mr McLay had raised would be enough to cover the first of the last two trees, he said.
The work remaining on the last two trees was not as significant as the work on the first three.
The Friendly Bay Bridge Restoration Trust paid $30,000 to have Mr Lagan transform the trees into reliefs of birds of the forest, birds of the ocean and animals of the sea.
And while the trees were not substantially smaller, the planned sculptures required less work, Mr McLay said.
''They're smaller from the point of view that we'll, in all likelihood, do one carving on each of the last two trees,'' he said.
''As in one tree might just be a big whale, or something.''
The trees themselves might suggest the sculptures they were to become, but the plans for the trees had not been finalised and would come from the artist, he said.
Mr McLay hoped to have the funding in place so Mr Lagan could work on the final tree before he left Oamaru.
