Auckland Botanic Gardens

Great walks, stream trails, forest walks, beautiful gardens, dog park etc. must visit when around south Auckland. Friendly neighbourhood and lots of options to enter and start walks. Joins to Totara park around Redoubt Road.

Great place, lovely atmosphere, we can here while it was cloudy but not raining, and it was the perfect temperature to walk around. We did wish we had come earlier in the year when more of the plants were flowering but there were still lots of lovely things to look at. I highly recommend going to see it. We also went to the cafe, coffee was good, and so were the cakes, everything fresh and the coffee at a perfect temperature.

The key word here is FREE. How can it be? For such an expansive garden with lots to see and walk through, I think it is mainly there for educational purposes - hence the free part. Walk through different areas and learn about NZ's native plants. This was a great find as we were driving around looking for something to take up 2 hrs before our flight, and what a treat it was.

You can spend an hour or a full half day walking a diversity of trees, plants and flowers species from NZ and other regions of the world. Well done.Enjoy a coffee or some sweets at the entrance with a view on the lake. There are spaces for kids. You can bring your dog on leash. And I had the unlikely opportunity to meet colleagues there !Note: Access by walking or soft mobility, eg from the train station, should be improved, to contributing in a city that is greener and works hard to address the challenges of the climatic crisis for the future generation.

Very nice place to visit for relaxing and ti unwind. Free entry for all ages. There's lots of parking inside or outside. You can bring along a mat or tent there and have a picnic with your family. Just be sure to clean after to keep the place nice and clean.

So well maintained and the most important is that they open up for everyone, it’s free access!I can’t imagine how much efforts those people put in here.weather not that good during the time I visit, but overall I still happy with the experience.(during winter the roses garden might not be that great, try to spend more time around the camellias and magnolias part)

Great place for a walk, with or without kids.Lots of beautiful plants and flowers, some art works dotted around. A pond or two is also on site including a kids area.

Amazing garden where you can walk the whole day. Nice sculptures and artworks to see on the way. Many zones are collecting plants from around the globe. And a nice cafe and information centre too.

Absolutely gorgeous!!!Lots of parking and free to enter.Lots of smaller themed garden areas with lovely and interesting walks throughout. Love that there are seats everywhere which encourage you to stop and enjoy, and the wide meandering paths allow for a relaxed time of enjoyment.Spent a few moments of enjoyment watching both fantails and tui playing.Thoroughly enjoyed our hours spent here!!

We stopped by for an afternoon since they had the sculpture in the park going.They are located just off the Hill Rd offramp going on the Southern Motorway.There isn't a big sign for the entrance but it does have a magnificent arch as you enter.The carpark is fairly large and does have quite a bit of parking. There is also a second parking lot further down. The gardens are free to enter. You can head in from the main entrance or just go through the sides. There is a map up front so you can get an idea of what's around.The place is really big and quite beautiful. There are plenty of places to just sit and relax in the grassy areas. There are a few different areas in the gardens and they are all quite different. We walked into a farm area with edible plants, which was an experience. We walked further along the paths and ended up in the palms area which looked like a bushwalk.There were some areas that were still being redone but overall it was really nice. We walked for a bit and only managed to walk around a portion of the gardens. It does look like the gardens connect to Totara Park.There was also a fresh fruit ice cream stall by the entrance which would be good during a hot day.