Our autumn display at the Auckland Botanic Gardens is all about which plants are in our foods, and the importance of plants in the world. The display runs from mid-March to May. It  will include a large visitor centre display of 2.4m high groceries (photos to come), videos of crop and food production, a kid’s trail (all about pizza!), a painted mural on one of our walls and interactive activities throughout our visitor centre (such as a ‘spice tour’ of spices under the microscope, a snack station featuring the plant ingredients in our snacks and a garden party ‘sniffer station’ to engage the senses and guess the plants used to make some of our favourite party foods).

The aim of the display is to highlight the importance of plants, and to encourage visitors to grow some simple food plants at home.

I’d like to highlight one aspect of this display- a large painted mural which will be a food matching game. Artists painted large popular food products on one of our walls, and we will install disks for visitors to match the plant to the food. It’s going to be great to watch as our visitors interact with the mural and play the ‘food matching’ game.

We’re excited about this display and look forward to the fun interactions and learning experiences with our visitors.