About Lydia Hastings

Garden designer. Ecological steward. Native plant advocate.

Lydia Hastings grew up on a small farm at the foot of the Shenandoah Mountains in northern Virginia — a place where wildflowers lined the fence rows, the woods were full of stories, and nature was her first and deepest teacher.

From those early days exploring creek beds and climbing oak trees, Lydia developed an intuitive understanding of natural rhythms — and a lifelong passion for plants, ecology, and the wild world.

A Journey Rooted in Curiosity

Before founding Fairnilee, Lydia traveled the world, studied native flora across continents, and spent time living in the mountains of Colorado and West Virginia. Along the way, she deepened her knowledge of ecology, seed propagation, and landscape restoration — often learning directly from the land itself.

She eventually returned to Virginia, where she began working with clients to rewild large tracts of land — transforming pastures, streambanks, and woodlands into thriving native meadows and biodiverse sanctuaries.

Today, Lydia continues that work in North Carolina and beyond, helping people bring beauty and life back into their gardens and landscapes — one native plant at a time.

The Heart of Fairnilee

Fairnilee isn’t just a garden business — it’s a way of seeing. Lydia approaches each project with an artist’s eye and an ecological mind. Her designs aren’t drawn from templates — they are built in real time, with the seasons, the soil, and the spirit of the place.

She draws inspiration from the landscapes she hikes and backpacks through across the Southeast — lush woodland edges, sun-dappled meadows, ferny hollows and longleaf pine savannas. These living systems inform her garden work, which blends structure and wildness, habitat and beauty.

Together with her partner John, Lydia travels to study native plants in different regions and ethically collect seed from rare species to propagate at home. Their own 0.3-acre yard has become a thriving native woodland — proof that you don’t need a lot of land to make a difference.

About the Name - Fairnilee

Fairnilee comes from an old name found in the Scottish Borders — a landscape of ferns, rivers, and quiet wild places where folklore and field once met. The poet Andrew Lang wrote of Fairnilee as a fairy field left to grow free, a place where the human world brushed against the unseen.

That vision feels close to the work I do: creating living ecosystems within the spaces we’ve tamed. Each garden is a small return to the wild — a place where pollinators, birds, and native plants can thrive again amid the lawns and edges we’ve manicured smooth. In this way, Fairnilee is both a name and a wish — that the world might grow a little wilder again.