Our Founder
From an early age, founder, Jamie McIlwain has always had a passion for horticulture. Even from the age of 18 years, he enjoyed visiting nurseries and feeling overwhelmed with excitement looking at all the plants, seeing the amazing varieties, the smells and the colours and starting to explore the possibilities of using these living gifts in his craft.
Upon completion of his studies, Jamie wasted no time in setting up his first landscaping business in 1991. Reflection Landscapes was located in Melbourne and after a short time after the business started, Jamie had a staff of 5 under his care.
During this time, Jamie honed his skills in the many landscaping and gardening projects that he was involved in, and was fortunate to maintain and build gardens for many lovely people over those years. With his passion for plants, they were always a strong element and at the forefront of the garden designs he created. Jamie continues to be a plant driven designer to this day.
After selling his successful business and travelling throughout Australia, in 2003, Jamie relocated to leafy Aldgate in the Adelaide Hills with his wife Sally. It wasn’t long before Jamie’s yearning to start a new business emerged and with that, Hills Classic Gardens commenced trading in 2004.
Jamie and Sally continue to run Hills Classic Gardens today with wonderful staff, many loyal clients and always lots to do. Along the way they have felt most privileged to be welcomed into people’s homes to assit with the improvement and maintenance of their gardens.
Along the way, Hills Classic Gardens has been awarded many Landscape Industry awards which are a testament to our hard working and talented team.
In recent years, Jamie has become a committee member for Open Gardens SA which he thoroughly enjoys.
Seeing the joy that the public receive from viewing gardens through Open Gardens SA left Jamie wanting to explore and open professionally designed and built gardens such as the format as Designfest in Melbourne and Hidden Design Festival in Sydney. After many years of meetings, some of his amazing fellow OGSA committee members, Master Landscaper SA staff and Jamie have created the SA Landscape Festival.
Jamie, the OGSA and MLSA team look forward to sharing these wonderful gardens with the general public biennially from 2021
