Flower Delivery Canberra: Same Day

Flowers will not fix this and you know it. They say the thing you cannot say from four hours up the highway.

Two different orders come out of the same death, so sort them before you buy. A spray or a sheaf for the service goes to the chapel and needs to be there ninety minutes ahead. An arrangement for the family goes to the house, and that window is about three days from the death, because after that the first wave has landed and yours disappears into it. Address the house delivery to the family surname, never to the person who died.

Anna, qualified florist

Chrysanthemums do the heavy lifting on a wreath or a sheaf. They hold a shape for days in a cold chapel and they do not shatter when the frame is moved. White stock and lisianthus fill behind them. Greek Orthodox and many Asian families want all white, a Hindu service wants marigold and brightness. Put the tradition on the order. Nobody builds a good sympathy piece guessing.

Sending something to a hospital when you cannot get there yourself is its own kind of helpless. You do not need the diagnosis to send flowers.

Canberra Hospital at Garran is our biggest hospital destination in the territory, and the routing is simple: reception desk, then a volunteer takes it up. Full name and ward on the order. Centenary Hospital for Women and Children shares the campus, so new baby flowers land there too, with the mother's name on the order. Calvary John James at Deakin does not take flowers into ICU, and if that is where your person is, the family home is the better address. Card line if you are stuck: "Thinking of you. Hope you are on the mend."

Discharge is the real risk. Order for a morning you know they are still in, because a bunch that arrives after the bed is empty stays at the nurses' station and nobody rings the sender to say so.

You cannot be at the table, so the flowers go instead. Most birthday orders into this city are that shape: someone in Sydney or Melbourne sending back to a parent who stayed for the job.

To an office, the address is department, floor and full name. Reception runs a delivery table and a bunch carrying only a first name waits on it. Timing matters as much: sitting weeks are busy and desks are occupied, while mid-December to late January the floors empty and a bunch arriving then can wait until February. Same for a thank you arrangement. Send it while people are there.

Anna, qualified florist

Gerberas earn their keep in a government office. Climate control means the humidity barely moves, they hold a week with nobody topping up the water, and they photograph well on a desk, which is half the point of an office bunch. Roses want attention nobody at work will give them. Send a box arrangement. Nobody has to hunt a vase out of a tea room.

It has been a while and you know it has.

Thinking of you flowers are one of the most common orders into Canberra aged care, and this city has homes in every district: Goodwin at Ainslie and Monash, Southern Cross Care on the south side, IRT Kangara Waters in Belconnen. Full name and room number and reception will have it upstairs inside the hour. Keep the card message short, because it gets read through glasses. Even an 80th birthday in a residential room wants the small low arrangement.

Anna, qualified florist

Regularity beats size in a residential room and the reason is the table. There is space for one low posy and a photo frame. Send monthly and something is always alive in there. Send one enormous arrangement and you get three weeks of a dead one, because nobody on staff has time to strip it back.

You want it still there next time you call, which in this city is a practical question.

Native arrangements are the most reordered thing we send into the ACT, and the reason is unglamorous: they survive both ends of the year here. Cathy Dixon's review at the top of this page is one line of it. The dried pods stay on a mantelpiece in Manuka or Griffith months after the rest has gone over.

Anna, qualified florist

Banksia and protea are built for the conditions this city runs. Thick cuticle, low transpiration, woody stems that do not collapse when the vase water drops. Leucadendron holds colour without water for weeks. Get the vase right though. Natives are heavy and top-loaded, so give them a solid base. A tall cylinder goes over the first time somebody moves it.

None of the five above matched exactly. That happens more than you would think.

Anna, qualified florist

For Canberra, send a native arrangement in a solid base and stop worrying about it. That is the recommendation I would give ten times out of ten here, and it is not a hedge. It copes with a heated house in July and a dry one in February, it survives twenty minutes on a porch if the call-ahead does not connect, and it keeps giving something back for a month. If you would rather the florist decided, Florist's Choice lets them build from whatever came in strongest that morning.