About Lynda

Lynda Hallinan was 18 years old and a bit of a nerd when she was first bitten by the gardening bug. For the past 25 years, her passion for plants has also been her career, as she specialised in writing - and talking - about gardening.

A former daily news journalist who ditched the fast pace of a radio newsroom for the gentler trade of garden writing, she is the former editor of New Zealand Gardener and Weekend Gardener magazines, and has previously edited the gardening pages of Your Home & Garden and NZ House & Garden. She fronted the TV shows Get Growing and Ground Rules, has nattered on air for many years on Newstalk ZB, Radio Live and Magic Talk, and wrote a weekly Sunday Star-Times column for 17 years.

Lynda is a columnist for New Zealand Gardener, NZ Life & Leisure, thisnzlife.co.nz, Thrive magazine and Nourish magazine and a popular speaker at gardening events all over New Zealand. 

She is the author of six books: NZ City Gardens (co-written with Julian Matthews), NZ Garden in Style: Get The Look You Want, Back to the Land, Foggydale Farm Jam Sessions, Damson: From Hedgerow to Harvest and The Joy of Gardening (published by Allen & Unwin in November 2021). 

Lynda lives with her family - husband Jason and children Lucas (10) and Lachlan (8) - at Foggydale Farm in the foothills of the Hunua Ranges, south-east of Auckland. She's a sucker for a sad face and has two adopted cats (Milly and Maisy), two dogs (Mr Puppy Doo-Hawg and Cricket the greedy Labrador), a fat kunekune pig called Plum Chutney, a flock of free-range chooks, pet Cayuga ducks, five rescue cows (Fantail, Cupcake, Sebastian, Rusty and Dusty) and 10 sheep (Lucy, Marley, Boris, Doris, Freckles, Caramel and two sets of as-yet unnamed spring twins!).
 
Lynda has a large country garden that she used to open to the public for charity events but more recently she bought (on a whim!) a rundown colonial cottage 3km up the road, on the banks of the Wairoa River, and she's now pulling apart her old garden to create a cutesy new one (on a slightly more manageable scale). She hopes to open her new cottage garden for the 2022 Franklin Hospice Garden Ramble. Watch this space!

To get in touch, email foggydalefarm@gmail.com or follow Lynda on Facebook @LyndaHallinanGardening or on Instagram @lyndahallinan

The legal guff: This online store is operated by Foggydale Farm Ltd, 358 Gelling Road, Hunua, RD3 Papakura 2583, New Zealand.