City Campus garden

AUT Community Gardens on the City Campus are located opposite the AUTSA office in the WC building. We have mint, lettuce, kale and thyme free for you to take home!

About the garden

The Papa Māra Terrace Garden at City Campus is a unique terrace garden siting on level 4 of WH building. This is a space where staff and students can come together to enjoy outdoor gardening activities or use as a relaxing space away from the busy city centre.

Papa Māra – a passion project

The space has been the pride and joy of many staff and students, who have maintained and added to the garden for more than a decade. In Semester 2, 2013, Senior Lecturer Suzanne Bliss and five students from the Diploma of Culinary Arts Applied Project, set up worm farms and a herb garden, funded out of the AUT sustainability budget. The herbs were grown in cut down wheelie bins, many of which are still used in the garden now.

​In 2021, the Culinary Arts Department hosted a breakfast event to officially name and bless Papa Māra, at the commencement of their first Culinary Arts & Gastronomy Winter Series. The naming of the garden was reflective of the remnants of Māori communal terraced gardens on north-facing slopes around Tāmaki Makaurau.

The garden now houses a range of fruits and vegetables including passionfruit and grape vines growing up over the pergola; as well as beans, tomatoes, banana palms, eggplants, and a wide variety of herbs, with produce being used in the teaching kitchens. There are even tables, chairs, a market umbrella and BBQ, making it a perfect spot for staff events or meetings.

“I am very proud of what everyone has achieved and the improvements that have been made, and continued to be made, to Papa Māra over the years,” says Suzanne.