Every year through spring, summer and autumn, Adelaide Hills gardeners welcome hundreds of visitors through their properties. From Mediterranean or English cottage gardens, to eclectic spaces where nature is interwoven with artwork, most of these spaces are passion projects that have evolved and grown over decades – some even over generations.
Whether you’re a keen gardener with your own established piece of paradise, a beginner looking for inspiration or a nature lover who enjoys the peace that gardens afford, ambling through one of the region’s Open Gardens is the perfect way to spend a spring afternoon.
Here are four gardens that are worth a visit this spring.
Drouin
12 Mossop Court, Littlehampton
Tucked away in a corner of Littlehampton, Sue and Jim Smith’s 2ha property is a sprawling “garden of discovery”.
The couple moved to the property in 2013 and began to transform the former paddocks into an English-style garden.
Over the years it has evolved to include more than 1000 roses, a walled cut flower garden, a rill, a bulb meadow, a Monet bridge over a lake and numerous garden rooms, connected by winding paths and expansive lawn areas, shaded by mature deciduous trees. Spring is the garden’s most colourful time of year, when roses come to life, trees have come out of their winter hibernation and other flowering plants, such as salvias are in full bloom. “It’s a garden of discovery,” Sue says. “It’s a garden where you walk from one area to another … and get different ideas.”
The couple’s latest project is a native garden that aims to demonstrate a more water-saving approach.
“Now we’re facing climate change, so we need to make sure the garden is future proof,” Sue says.
The garden will be opened this year in honour of the memory of Sue’s close friend and gardening mentor, who passed away from motor neurone disease. “It’s really important to me personally,” Sue says. “I miss her so much … she was just such a keen gardener.”
The garden will open on November 7 and 8, 2026, from 10am until 4.30pm.
Lochness lodge
282 Ironbank Road, Ironbank
For owners Jenny and Paul Clark, Lochness Lodge is a labour of love. Over the 20 years that they’ve lived at the Ironbank property, they have transformed it into a rambling English-style garden, where stretches of lawn are shaded by plane, claret ash and golden elm trees, and camellias, rhododendrons, hydrangeas and roses provide splashes of colour through the seasons.
As visitors arrive at the garden, they’re greeted by a drive lined by Manchurian pears that flower through spring and overlook a dam that provides a home for resident ducks. Neatly trimmed box hedges, garden sculptures and topiary provide structure, while dry-wall-lined paths intersect garden beds. A small citrus grove, a veggie patch and a greenhouse provide home-grown produce and ferns and shade-loving plants line a winter creek that flows through the garden.
There’s also a vineyard planted along a north-facing slope of the 3.5 acre property that provides Sauvignon Blanc and Shiraz for the small winery that was Paul’s retirement project.
The garden surrounds an Irish-style cottage – one of the things that first drew Jenny and Paul to the property because of its links to the UK. “It was just idyllic,” Jenny says. “Coming from Scotland, it was a replica of an Irish cottage and I just loved it. … When we came down the drive, we just fell in love with the whole picture.”
Lochness Lodge will be open on November 21 and 22, 2026, from 10am until 4.30pm.
There will be a demonstration of intelligent fire protection spinkler system by Embarr at 3.30pm on the Sunday. The Open Garden will raise money for the CFS and women’s shelters.
The Knoll
6 The Knoll Crescent, Coromandel Valley
It was a 136-year-old stone homestead that inspired the Coromandel Valley garden, The Knoll. Current owners John and Alison Edwards moved to the home – which was built in 1896 by John’s great-grandparents – in 1983 and have spent the past 43 years transforming what was a 3000sqm expanse of kikuyu into a tranquil space that reflects the historical home. Today the garden wraps around the house. Three separate lawn areas bordered by shady deciduous trees, perennial flowers and fragrant shrubs are connected to glades of silver birches, prunus and pin oaks by winding gravel paths.
In keeping with the style of the home, garden bed borders and retaining walls are constructed from Stonyfell Quarry stones. Over the past few decades the garden has continued to evolve, particularly as the tree canopy grew, casting shade over previously sunny spots. But for Alison and John, keeping up with the changing landscape is half the fun.
“We just enjoy it – it’s just a hobby, something we can both do and both share,” Alison says. “I think that’s been really nice that we’ve worked on this together.
“And when people come to visit, if they take one idea away, then our job’s done.”
The Knoll will be open on November 7 and 8, 2026, from 10am until 4.30pm.
The Glades
5 Linwood Avenue, Aldgate
Over the past four decades, David and Lynne Wilkinson have transformed their Aldgate property from a bush block into a garden influenced by the subtlety of the Japanese style. When they couple first arrived at The Glades in 1982, David was taken by the natural environment and the native flowers that pushed up through winter. But as the weather warmed, he began to realise that summer also ushered in a battle with exotic weeds. “I enjoyed the spectacle until summer came and it all disappeared,” David recalls.
“It was all very soft and moist and enticing during winter and spring, it became less so as the days warmed up and everything became rather more dusty. We had this situation for a couple of years and I decided it wasn’t really what I wanted. The paths I had wandering through the bush became invaded by dandelions and grass.
“And I thought ‘I’m too much of an organised person to have a garden that’s just going to deteriorate and be invaded by weeds’.” Over the following years he began to plan out the garden he wanted to create – watching where the sun fell across the property and monitoring the rainfall. He was taken by the simplicity of the Japanese style – something that is evident in the garden today in the maples and the stream flowing through the property, cascading down into a small pond. There are also dogwoods, rhododendrons, camellias, ajuga, clivia and irises, while gums, banksias and blackwood wattles point back to the history of the block.
It’s now a tranquil place that David loves to wander through at all times of year. “It’s wonderful – I go out into the garden and wander around and we have more birds coming through he garden than we ever had before when it was a native plot,” he says. “I was also very conscious of not having it be a massive splendour at the beginning of spring and not much after that.
“I wanted to have an unfolding of different vistas – and not just flowers – almost different sets of gardens unfolding one after the other so it didn’t become boring at the end of spring.”
The Glades will be open on October 17 and 18, 2026, from 10am until 4.30pm. There will be a walk and talk with the owners at 11am and 2pm.
