Former Shoalhaven and Ballina resident, the late Don Ellison was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for his service to horticulture.

Mr Ellison, who passed away in August last year aged 86, according to his family "lived, ate and slept everything horticulture".

Mr Ellison was the former owner/operator of Ellison Horticultural (supplier of palms and cycads) which he established in the Shoalhaven in 1980.

"Dad would have been so proud of this honour," said his daughter Rhonda LeBrocque, who continues her father's work running Ellison Horticultural, now on the state's North Coast.

"It is just a shame Dad isn't here to witness this. He would have been so proud.

"He just loved plants, lived for them and everything about them.

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"His whole life revolved around plants. He produced numerous books on the subject, conducted numerous overseas tours and was in the process of producing another book last year but suffered a stroke and passed away a few months later."

Always keen to be involved in his local community he also served as a Shoalhaven City Council Alderman from 1980-1983 and was a former Shoalhaven Deputy Mayor.

He was also a former board member of the Nursery and Garden Industry Australia, the Art Society of NSW and a founding member of the Australian Nurseries Export Ltd.

"He had a passion for exporting," Mrs LeBrocque said. "He would take people in the nursery industry all over the world to horticulture trade shows, encouraging Australian export orders.

"Even up until the day of his stroke he was always trying and encouraging people to start their own businesses in horticulture."

It is estimated that passion led to 212 overseas trips to all parts of the world.

He relocated to Queensland in the late 1980s after Mrs LeBrocque and her husband David took over the Nowra operation, and had a little nursery growing area on the Coomera River, inland from the Gold Coast.

The LeBroques relocated their business to Alstonville in 2002, closing the Nowra operation in 2005 and continue to operate Ellison Horticuture.

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Mr Ellison relocated to a self-care retirement village in Ballina in 2015.

"He was just very passionate about the nursery industry and spent a lot of time at the Brisbane Botanical Gardens helping with strategies and often took groups, which included the curator, on tours to Thailand for a number of years," she said.

Mr Ellison was an Australian judge at the Floralies Horticulture Exhibition in Belgium in 1980, 1985, 1990 and 2000.

He worked on a variety of publications including as author of Cultivated Plants of the World, co-author of Betrock's Cultivated Palms of the World and author of Camellias: A Photographic Dictionary.

His efforts saw him awarded the NSW Exporter of the Year for Primary Products in 1980, receive an Australian Export Award in 1979 and in the 1990s the business won the Illawarra Exporter of the Year and the NSW Exporter of the Year for Primary Products.

Shoalhaven City also named Ellison Close, off Greenwell Point Road at Worrigee, adjacent to where he operated his business, in his honour.

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