Same Day Flower Delivery Alexandra Headland

Most birthday flowers here go to a house or apartment, and a street or unit number plus a mobile does the job. Sending anniversary flowers to someone here on holiday, to be waiting after their swim? Add the building name and the surname the booking is under.

I learned that last one the hard way. Around 2007 a man in Melbourne ordered a dozen red roses for his wife, on holiday at Mantra on Salt Beach at Kingscliff, the resort Siobhan and I stayed in the night before we bought the shop. I carried them in. The card had her name and nothing else, and reception had nobody by that name. Twenty minutes and a call to Melbourne later, it turned out she'd booked under her maiden name.

Anna, on red in the sun: sun breaks down the pigment in red petals, and a red bunch left out in it can pink up within a couple of days. Inside, out of direct light, they hold their colour.

Mum turns ninety at Tantula Rise on Tantula Road West and you're interstate. That one address covers the Bolton Clarke care home and the retirement units beside it, so say which, with the room or unit number; in our experience care-home flowers go through the front desk. 90th birthday flowers or thinking of you flowers both suit. For the card: "Happy 90th, Mum. We'll ring tonight."

Lilies suit a private room, scent and all. Pinch the anthers off as each bloom opens and the pollen never reaches a cream bedspread, and in my experience the flower lasts longer too.

Someone's just had surgery and a text feels thin. Are they at Buderim Private Hospital on Elsa Wilson Drive, Sunshine Coast University Hospital at Birtinya, or home already? For a ward, name it; in our experience staff at the ward desk take flowers in. Get well flowers suit the ward or the house, and "Rest up. Home soon." is plenty for the card.

After a death, sympathy flowers for the home reach the family on the day you choose. For the service itself, put the funeral director's name and the time in the notes. "Thinking of you all" says enough.

Anna, on hospital air

Wards tend to run dry aircon, and so do plenty of homes in summer. Carnations and chrysanthemums shrug it off and go well past a week, which suits a get-well bunch and a sympathy one alike.

Plenty of orders fit no category: a new job, a house sale gone through, a friend you miss. Our Australian Native Arrangement is the second most popular thing we sell.

Anna's pick: the native arrangement. It's the woody frame from the top of the page made into a whole arrangement, and protea and banksia take a sea breeze in their stride. Protea drinks hard, so top the vase up daily.