Hanging Gardens of New Zealand was awarded the Ports of Auckland contract for the installation of the largest vertical garden of its kind in the world, on the new car-handling building on Auckland’s waterfront.

Ports of Auckland Chief Executive Tony Gibson said “This vertical garden  is one of the design features of this new building that will improve the look of the port and better integrate it into the central city. As it grows, the garden will help turn what could be a boring, functional building into a local landmark which increases bio-diversity and greens the central city.”  Other features include a ‘light sculpture’ on the western wall of the building and a public park on the roof, to be built in the next few years.

The garden is a collaboration between Ports of Auckland, Plus Architecture (who designed the building) and New Zealand company Hanging Gardens. Hanging Gardens’ unique soil-based vertical garden system was invented and manufactured right here in New Zealand. It is the only vertical garden product which meets the Living Building Challenge criteria for sustainability. Everything used in the garden can be either re-used or recycled.

The garden has been planted with 75%  NZ native plants  with around 40 species used.  Around 3800 plants have been used in the installation, pre-grown in felt pockets by New Zealand’s renowned horticulture team at Joy Plants

To ensure plant health  and minimal water use, sensor-controlled drip irrigation has been installed by the irrigation specialists from Thinkwater.

The Hanging Gardens business started in 2012 after searching around the world for suitable products and failing to find any that were designed around plant requirements. The original Hanging Gardens system was designed to be light weight, modular, low cost, high quality, good for plant health and perfect for the home gardener.

Two years after the original design, the system was modified for high end commercial use and modules are now made where the gardens are suspended on 316 marine grade stainless rods and wires which can be precision engineered to fit any dimensions.

Hanging Garden products are the only vertical garden products specified in NZ’s architectural database, MasterSpec.

In 2012 there were only 3 vertical gardens in NZ and Hanging Gardens is now leading the world in soil based vertical gardens with installations around the country.

Hanging Gardens prides itself on the use of native plants for creating corridors of vegetation to clean and green up our urban areas and aims to become Hanging Gardens of NZ – the new wonder of the modern world.