Former NZ Gardener editor, author, broadcaster, amateur home-brewer, pickler, preserver, part-time farmer, occasional farmers’ market stallholder and mad-keen gardener, Lynda Hallinan has spent half her life writing about her passion for plants.

In 2009, she met her husband Jason Hinton and moved to a 65-acre smallholding in the Hunua Ranges, south-east of Auckland, where she’s raising two children, Lucas and Lachlan, plus 14 cattle, 8 sheep, a dozen chooks, two kunekune pigs and too many houseplants to count!

Lynda’s garden at Foggydale Farm is (occasionally) open to the public for charity events and includes a barley meadow, lotus pond, sweeping boardwalks, cut flower beds, a converted stableblock, orchard of heritage fruit trees, woodland gardens, an equestrian arena-sized vegetable garden and a shepherd’s hut filled with dried flowers. Basically, a bit of everything.

Lynda chats about gardening each week on Radio Live (at 7.05am on Sundays on Tony Murrell’s Home and Garden Show, and at 1pm on Wednesdays on Wendyl Nissen’s Long Lunch); is a contributor to NZ Gardener magazine and the Australian Women’s Weekly New Zealand edition; a weekly columnist for the Sunday Star-Times, speaker and workshop host. To get in touch, email nzgardener@gmail.com.