Gardening The City

The City Centre Gardening Network

Imagine, for a moment, our city alive. Not just a drab concrete-jungle of cars and glass windows but a beautiful green patchwork connecting communities to nature and providing sanctuary for wildlife. It may be an impossible dream but for every person who’s willing to believe, we are one step closer to making our city a better place. Āiotanga Trust hopes to support and uplift the amazing work already being done by communities and organisations across the city by facilitating the City Centre Gardening Network.

The City Centre Gardening Network weaves together to share ideas, resources and knowledge. Working with gardens and green spaces across the city to run weeding and planting workshops, working bees. Including the UoA Bee Sanctuary, Emily Place Reserve, apartment balconies and more.

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Why is This Important?

This matters because it’s more than just gardening. This is true climate action and sustainability in practice. It’s a reminder of what can grow when a community decides to nurture something together. Where strangers become collaborators, where food is shared freely, and where everyone has a chance to leave a small mark of care on the world. Together we can heal our natural environment and build a resilient, vibrant city where people, place, and planet can flourish.

Get Involved

It is you, the local residents, volunteers, students, organisations who make this happen. We are here to learn, grow and inspire each other. Have you got an idea or resource you would like to share? Want to get involved but don’t know where to start? Contact us to find out more!

Contact us

We have 4 main threads of action: Organic Growing, Regeneration, Composting, and Placemaking.

Organic Growing

Sustainable food supply
Growing healthy fruits and vegetables
Learning life skills
Engaging with nature
Pollinator friendly gardens

Regeneration

Promoting biodiversity
Honouring natural and Maori history
Native restoration
Encouraging native birds
Controlling pest plants and animals

Organic Growing

Recycling food scraps from city centre residents
Reducing green waste to landfill
Creating nutritious soil to be used in the garden
Developing a circular economy

Placemaking

Get to know your neighbours
Making the city beautiful
Creating safer communities
Connecting with your environment

Meet the Gardens

Daldy St

This community garden sits on the corner of Daldy St and Pakenham St W, in Wynyard Quarter. It’s a shared space where neighbours can tend to their very own garden bed, raise seedlings in the glass house, and nourish the soil through compost bays and worm farms. Supported by Auckland Council, this garden is holding green space until further land developments take place.

Myers Park Cottage 20 Scotia Place

A fresh new community garden is taking root at the recently opened Myers Park Cottage, a growing community hub for the neighbourhood. Tucked behind the caretaker’s cottage, the garden offers a calm, welcoming space where locals can come together to plant, share, and learn. It’s a place for growing food, nurturing flowers, swapping tips, and building connections as the wider community begins to make the most of this new gathering spot.

St Andrew’s 2 Symonds Street

A quaint little garden sits behind the St Andrew’s church carpark near the University of Auckland music building. The garden consists of 9 raised wooden planter boxes for growing seasonable vegetables and a couple cold compost boxes. This garden is taking a little hiatus while construction work is underway in the university grounds nearby.

St Matthews-in-the-city 132 Hobson Street

Sitting proudly on the corner of Wellesley St and Federal St, just behind the St Matthew’s-in-the-city church. Pick your own seasonal vegetables or listen to the tui as they sing to the city from high up in the pohutukawa trees. There’s plenty for all to enjoy as you wander through this open style garden. Community compost drop offs available..

The UoA Bee Sanctuary 17 Eden Crescent

It began with an abandoned plot of land of a demolished building until some inspired students of the university’s Sustainable Future Collective rolled-up their sleeves and envisioned a more beautiful fate. Spade by spade, plant by plant, the Bee Sanctuary is now a thriving garden space teaming with life. From native plants to organic grown vegetables, this space has been given a chance at life and truly offers sanctuary for the community, native birds and of course the bees! Community compost drop offs available.