Aucklanders who have plots at the Daldy Street Community Garden will now have somewhere to store their tools and grow seeds with the arrival of a shed and glasshouse from the former Griffiths Garden site.
Daldy Street Community Garden and For the Love of Bees advocate and artist Sarah Smuts-Kennedy says the arrival of the shed and glasshouse is a “great resource” for plot owners.
“It allows people to have more tools and grow more seeds on the site and is another step towards creating a regenerative learning centre.”
It also makes the site visible to the public.
“If we are not visible, we are invisible,” she smiles.
The Griffiths Gardens was located at 42 Wellesley Street West in the heart of Auckland’s central business district and was the brainchild of the council’s Auckland Design Office and funded by the City Centre Advisory Board as part of its efforts to retain the vibrancy of the city centre during major capital works.
The site was closed a few weeks ago as development on the Aotea City Rail Link station started.
A teaching hub For the Love of Bees, Sarah says they will continue to educate people through workshops and upskill gardeners.
For Sarah and her For the Love of Bees team, the Wynyard Quarter located garden not only provides a food source for the community but is helping to make a world safe for bees.
“We are creating a backyard experience for everyone while at the same time continuing our journey to turn Auckland into the safest city in the world for bees.”
The Daldy Street site is one of many community gardens and small urban farms being developed in the city and Sarah says the support is growing.
“Community gardens and small urban farms are much more than a food source for the community. They bring people together, provide practical learning opportunities and help develop climate change ready infrastructure in local communities.”
And the future is looking bright.
“With so many residential developments happening in the city our vision is to see more urban farms, community gardens and composting hubs being developed.
"It's also about creating an adventure around low carbon food systems around our city and it's not a folly, this is a professional system emerging."
For the Love of Bees
For the Love of Bees is a living artwork which started in 2016 by inviting Aucklanders to imagine their city as the world's safest space for pollinators. Over the years it has grown into a movement across New Zealand, sharing knowledge and building climate change ready infrastructure in communities through learning adventures, workshops and centres of regenerative learning.
Projects pilot solutions for climate change and insect decimation in hundreds of communities across the country by creating a collaborative, action-based educational platform that accelerates change.
