A giant knitted brain hanging between two trees in Greerton Village is a drawcard for people keen to see what the suspended artwork is all about.

Also known as Tree 2 and 3 in the list of 36 yarn-bombed trees that have knitted artworks around their trunk during July, the huge knitted sculpture is a massive brain that people can walk underneath and look up inside.

This year's yarn bombing theme ‘Love our Earth - Aroha Ki Papatuanuku' allows everyone to come up with creative ways to celebrate the wonders of the world.

The brain arrived in Greerton Village in the back of a large truck after being assembled by the ‘Ruru' team who aim to raise funds for their chosen charity Blind Low Vision Tauranga.

'For us the theme of loving our earth stems from the connection we have to our whenua, the connection we have to the earth and ultimately for us it was about whanau,” says Ruru's Helen Perry.

Helen says their large team comprises members from Wellington to the Waikato to the Bay of Plenty, and it was important that everyone be able to contribute.

'We've had contributors involved that are 88 years old that haven't picked up knitting needles in 20 years, to as young as six years old.

'And that for us was huge. Getting people to dust off those knitting sticks and get out there and have a go.”

Team members knitted long tubes.

'We filled them with recycled plastics which would have gone to landfill. So we really had to think about how we were impacting our space. We didn't want to hang on the trees, but we wanted to use them like a support that's holding our thoughts up and then the brain stem connects down to the whenua.”

Helen's uncle Alan de Vries says Helen is the ‘brain behind the brain'.

'My niece always comes up with some sort of arty idea,” says Alan. 'It was a bit of a laugh this year when she came up with the brain.”

A friend of Alan's at Impact Engineering donated the steel frame and allowed him to come over and put it together. The team have used lighting inside the brain, showing the connections, arteries and veins As it was installed at the tree location a lot of knitting bundled up inside unwrapped to hang down below.

'The spinal cord with all the nerves coming down,” says Helen. 'We encourage viewers to step inside the brain and 'think” about their connection to the whenua, their whanau and their mental health and well-being. The core Maori health principals of ‘te whare tapa wha'.”

Public voting for the artworks is taking place in Greerton Village and online on the Greerton Village Facebook page, until Friday, August 4, with the winning trees raising funds for their chosen community organisations.