Flowers Delivered to Annandale, Over One of Two Bridges

Annandale looks close. The river says otherwise. The Ross River takes the whole northern edge and the two crossings are at either end, so the route in is set by the nearer bridge. It goes to the school streets, to defence families counted in this suburb's census, to the Palmetum gates. You see none of it. Andrew here. Siobhan and I have run Lily's Florist since 2009, and I was here a week in 2023 for Ivy's netball at Murray Sporting Complex. Order before 2pm on a weekday and it is at the door that afternoon.

Order online by 2pm · from $42.95 · $16.95 delivery Phone 1300 360 469 · 7am-6pm weekdays, 10am Sat

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A real customer review

"Good variety of colours - the perfect colour combination that I wanted. Could send an email that they have been delivered with a photo of the flowers."

Mary Trevallion, verified customer, 24 July 2023

Anna on why the colour held

Mary ordered a purple and lilac arrangement, and the colour match is the part worth pulling out. Tonal work is harder to build than a bright mixed bunch: every stem has to land inside a narrow band and one rose leaning warm shows up immediately. Spider mums, lavender roses, lisianthus and trachelium all read purple in a catalogue and none of them are the same purple in a bucket.

Mary also wanted a photo on delivery and did not get one. She is right to ask. It is available if you request it, and on a tonal order the colour brief is the whole job.

The cutoff, and what sets it

The cutoff is 2pm weekdays and 10am Saturdays. It is a bench and run window, not an office rule: after that there is no time left to condition, build, wrap and drive. No Sunday delivery.

Why the bridges decide the run

Annandale runs along the south bank of the Ross River with crossings at each end. An address near the Nathan Street end and one near Stuart Drive get reached from opposite directions, so the run is routed on the crossing.

Where orders actually land

Four kinds of address cover most of it: family homes on the school streets, defence housing near the barracks, the Palmetum and its Blackhawk Memorial, and Murray Sporting Complex on a tournament weekend.

What the heat does to a stem

February here averages a 32 degree daily maximum with the humidity behind it. A wrapped bunch left in sun on a concrete step loses days of vase life inside an hour, so the safe-place note in your order earns its keep.

Where the stems come from

There is no flower market in this part of the state. Stock arrives by refrigerated road freight from the Brisbane markets, which is why a florist here works out of a cool room filled days ahead of your order.

Who makes it

We have no shop in Annandale. The order goes to a partner florist in or close to the suburb with the stems and the room that day. That is the trade, and the next section sets it out in full.

Something still stopping you?

Can it still get there today? Will they last in this heat? A house, a ward, or the base? Nobody will be home It's a funeral and I'm interstate I don't know what to send You have no shop in Annandale

What "Delivered by a Partner Florist" Actually Means Here

The line at the top of this page

The line at the top says a partner florist makes and delivers your order. On its own it tells you nothing about whether to read that as good news.

We have never had a shop in Annandale. Lily's Florist is a network of more than 800 florists around the country, and your order goes straight out to one of them working in or close to the suburb, as a paid job carrying your address and your card message. They open a cool room that morning, pick the stems, build it and drive it.

What you give up

You cannot walk in and point at a bucket. You are not choosing the shop, the hands or the exact stems, and if any of that matters to you, a Townsville shop you can drive to beats us on it every time. You are buying a description and trusting somebody to read it.

What you get instead

Your order stops depending on one shop's Tuesday. Closed for a family funeral, out of white lilies, four runs behind on the Friday before Mother's Day, and the job moves to another bench the same morning. A single shop in that position can only ring you and apologise.

Redundancy counts for more the further you get from a capital. CHOICE tested flower delivery to twenty-one regional Australian addresses and eight of those deliveries never turned up. Put a wet season on top of that, one that can shut a road with an hour of warning, and depending on a single shop here is a thinner bet than the same bet in Sydney.

What we do about it is dull and checkable. The order leaves us paid, so nobody at the other end is deciding whether it is worth their morning. Our line runs 7am to 6pm weekdays and 10am Saturdays on 1300 360 469. Tell us inside 24 hours if something is wrong and we go back to the florist that day, with a photograph when you ask.

So there is the model. You can weigh it before you spend anything.

What a wet-season doorstep does to a stem in the first hour

Anna, qualified florist | fifteen years on the bench, a decade of it working tropical stock

Tropical stock behaves differently under the hands and you learn it quickly or you throw a lot of product in the bin. Through a February up here the air carries moisture all day, and what finishes a rose is water sitting on a petal that never dries. Roses and lisianthus mark first. A rust-coloured fleck appears on the outer petals inside about a day, and by day three the guard petal has gone soft and brown at the edge.

The mould is botrytis. It lives on almost every flower crop grown anywhere and does nothing at all until it gets free moisture and warmth in the same place. Above roughly 20 degrees with humidity near saturation, spores germinate in a few hours. A cool room slows it right down. A closed car boot at 35 degrees runs it forward, and so does a bunch pressed tight in cellophane with no air through the heads. A florist working in this climate conditions early, cuts under water, strips every leaf below the waterline and builds loose.

So the rule I would give anybody sending into these streets is to pick stems with substance and a vessel that already holds water. Gerberas, chrysanthemums, orientals, carnations, banksia and grevillea. Thick tissue or a waxy surface, and they shrug off a humid week. Hydrangea and the softer garden roses are beautiful and they are a two-day flower in a Townsville wet season, which is worth knowing before you spend the money. A box arrangement leaves the shop already in its own water, so it can go on a table and be forgotten about.

You Still Have Time Today. Here Is Exactly How Much.

Same day is the thing people get wrong most often. It is a working day with a queue in it. Below is what actually happens to an Annandale order between the moment you press the button and the moment somebody opens the door, at three different start times.

One Annandale order, three start times

Our own cutoffs and the working pattern our partner florists run to. Weekday. Nothing here is modelled or estimated.

7am 8 9 10 11 12 1pm 2 3 4 5 6

You order at 9am the comfortable one

9amOrder lands, paid

10 to 11amStems conditioned, built, wrapped

12 to 1pmOn the run, over the nearer bridge

2 to 3pmAt the door, before school pick-up

You order at 1:45pm fifteen minutes to spare

1:45pmOrder lands, paid

2 to 3pmBuilt fast, from what is already in the cool room

4 to 5pmLast run of the day

By 6pmAt the door

You order at 2:05pm five minutes too late

Nothing happens todayThe order waits and goes out on tomorrow's first run, arriving tomorrow morning. Five minutes costs you a day.

2pmThe weekday cutoff. Miss it and the order joins tomorrow's first run.

10amThe Saturday cutoff. Nothing is delivered on a Sunday anywhere in the network.

1 bridgeEvery Annandale run crosses the Ross River once, so morning orders get grouped by which end of the suburb you are on.

The top two lanes are both same day. Only one of them arrives while anyone is home.

Start Your Order Before 2pm Today

Where Is It Going in Annandale?

Five kinds of address, five different answers. Pick the one you are sending to.

A house on the school streets Defence family housing The Palmetum Murray Sporting Complex Over the river to Douglas

A house on the school streets

Most of Annandale is single-storey homes built between the mid-1970s and 2005, laid out around five schools. Front doors are set back, carports are common and side gates are usually unlocked, which gives a driver somewhere shaded to leave an order.

The mistake is ordering for a school-day afternoon. Pick-up empties these streets and the house stays empty until after five. A morning slot lands better.

Best time: Morning, before the heat builds
Needs: Street number and a safe-place line in the order notes
Send: A box arrangement, already in water
Avoid: A wrapped bunch with nobody home, because it dries out on the step

Defence family housing near the barracks

Lavarack Barracks borders this part of Townsville, and census figures for Annandale have historically counted barracks residents. Plenty of the orders through here come from another state: a parent in Adelaide, a partner still in Sydney while the posting runs.

Send to the residential street address, every time. Our drivers hold no base access and, in our experience, an order addressed to a block number on base does not reach a person.

Best time: Weekday morning, or Saturday before 10am cutoff
Needs: A residential street address off base
Send: Something that survives a locked-up house, so a box over a bunch
Avoid: Long card messages, because defence families rarely want them

The Palmetum and the Blackhawk Memorial

The Palmetum is a 17-hectare botanic garden off Nathan Street, opened in September 1988, holding around 300 palm species. The Blackhawk Memorial inside it was completed in 1997 for the eighteen soldiers killed in the High Range training accident, and it draws tributes on anniversaries.

A memorial delivery is a public place with no letterbox and nobody to sign. In our experience a driver will not leave an arrangement unattended in a public garden, so a mobile number in the notes is what saves the run.

Best time: Mid-morning, with somebody there to receive
Needs: A mobile number for the recipient in the order notes
Send: A wreath or sheaf, built to stand up outdoors
Avoid: A glass vase, because it will not survive an unattended garden

Murray Sporting Complex on a tournament weekend

The complex takes in Townsville Stadium and the SeaFM Basketball Stadium, and it fills for state-level carnivals that pull families in from everywhere. I have been there for one.

A venue mid-carnival is the hardest address on this list. Courts move, teams move, and nobody at the desk knows which of two hundred families you mean. Send it to the accommodation and let the flowers meet them after the last game.

Best time: Evening at the accommodation, after the last game
Needs: Accommodation name, room number and a mobile
Send: Something small enough to fly home or give away
Avoid: The venue itself on a carnival day, because it will not find them

Over the river to Douglas

Townsville University Hospital and the James Cook University campus are both in Douglas, over the western end of the suburb. People searching for Annandale often want one of those two, so name which.

At the hospital our florists tend to find flowers go to the ward reception desk and staff walk them in, so the ward name matters more than the room number. At campus accommodation a desk holds it and the student collects. Neither puts a bunch in somebody's hands at the door.

Best time: Before 11am, ahead of ward rounds and lectures
Needs: Ward or hall name, plus the recipient's full name
Send: A compact vase-free arrangement for a bedside table
Avoid: Strongly scented lilies, because many wards ask you not to

Five doors, and you are standing at none of them. The address detail you type is the only control you get.

How an Annandale Order Actually Moves

The florist who makes the arrangement decides what goes in it. There is no warehouse, no conveyor belt and no shrink wrap. A person near your recipient opens a cool room, selects the stems, builds the bunch by hand and drives it to the address.

* Our chalkboard in the Kingscliff shop, drawn when we first tried to explain the relay model to walk-in customers.

Chalkboard explaining the Lily's Florist relay flower delivery model

You order online or by phone before 2pm on a weekday

It goes out as a paid order to a florist in or near the suburb

They condition and build it that morning from the cool room

The run is routed off whichever crossing is nearer the address

Handed over, or left in the shaded safe place you named

What to Send to Annandale, and How to Get It Right

The products above cover what to buy. This part covers how to get it right. Annandale is family homes, five schools, a garrison over the boundary and a campus a bridge away, so the orders lean toward birthdays, thinking-of-you and the occasional box arrangement going somewhere nobody will be standing to receive it.

A Birthday You Are Missing From Another State

Somebody you care about turns a year older on a street you have never walked down, and you will not be in the room for it. Sending flowers does not fix that. What it does is put something real at the door before the day gets away, which is simultaneously not enough and more than most people manage from 1,400 kilometres south.

Order the day before, or early the same morning, and it goes on the first run. If you are not certain anyone will be home, put a safe-place line in the notes, because our drivers report back that the covered porch or the carport is where an Annandale delivery survives an afternoon. For a 50th or a milestone year, look at an arrangement over a bunch: the box needs no vase, one less job on a busy morning.

The card is the part you write. You type it into the order notes and the florist prints exactly what you typed, so keep it to about three lines. "Happy birthday Mum, wish I was there" fits. A paragraph comes out too small to read.

They Are Posted Here and You Are Not

You have not heard from them in a while, or you have and the call felt thin. A posting to Townsville does that to people at both ends. A good share of the thinking of you orders landing in these streets come from another state, and the card message is usually one line.

Use the residential address. Our drivers have no way onto Lavarack and, from what we see come back, an order addressed to a block number on base does not find its person. If the homecoming is yours, put your own address on the order and let it be waiting.

Anna, on picking when you cannot decide: for these I would steer you at the Florist's Choice range, because the florist builds from whatever came up strongest in that morning's stock. A sender already stretched thin should not have to make one more call about stem varieties.

Send Sympathy Flowers to the House First

Someone has died and you are on the wrong side of the country for the service. The date has probably already been set without you being able to make it work.

Sort it this way. If the service is in the next day or two, chapel timing is tight and an arrangement needs to be there hours before the family arrives, so ring 1300 360 469 and we will work back from the service time. If the service has passed, send to the house. Sympathy flowers for the home land in the week after, when the phone stops ringing and the house goes quiet, and our florists tell us those are the ones families remember.

Anna on what holds in a Townsville house

Go white and go structural. White chrysanthemums, orientals and white gerberas carry the weight and hold their form for a week in a room with the air conditioning cycling on and off. Keep the card short. Four or five words does more than a paragraph. "Thinking of you all this week" is enough.

What Do You Send for a Graduation Here?

They finished, and the photos will happen with or without you in them. Five schools are inside this suburb and a campus is over the western crossing, so graduation orders here run from Year 12 formals up to postgraduate ceremonies.

Send it to the house on the morning of the ceremony. Our florists find venue deliveries on a graduation day get stacked at a desk and collected hours later by somebody carrying a gown, a cap and a phone. Graduation flowers arriving before they leave the house also make the photos, and a celebration arrangement in a box will still be standing that night.

Anna: avoid anything tall and top-heavy on a graduation day. It travels in a car boot and gets carried across a car park in the sun. A low box build takes that treatment where a tall vase arrangement will not.

No occasion needed, and no vase to find at the other end.

Order Before 2pm for Delivery Today

When None of These Quite Fit

You do not have to label the occasion to send flowers, and plenty of the best orders through here carry no reason at all.

Anna's pick for this suburb: a purple and lilac box arrangement. Spider mums, lavender roses, lisianthus and trachelium in one tonal band. Purple keeps its own lane, so it reads as considered without announcing a birthday or a sympathy, and the box means nobody has to find a vase or trim a stem for an arrival they were not expecting. It also holds up in this climate, where a soft pastel bunch struggles. To talk it through, ring 1300 360 469.

Annandale Delivery Questions, Answered Straight

What is the actual same-day cutoff for Annandale?

2pm on weekdays and 10am on Saturdays. The order has to reach the florist with enough of the day left to condition, build, wrap and drive a run that crosses the river once. A 9am order has margin. A 1:45pm order arrives late in the afternoon.

Can you deliver flowers onto Lavarack Barracks?

No. Our drivers hold no base access, so an order addressed to a block number on base does not reach a person. Send to the recipient's residential street address in Annandale or the suburbs around it. Defence families here have historically been counted in this suburb's census figures.

Do flowers last in Annandale in February?

Yes, indoors. February averages a 32 degree daily maximum and close to 300mm of rain, and the humidity behind it is what marks a soft petal. Gerberas, chrysanthemums, orientals and natives hold a full week inside. Hydrangea and delicate garden roses give about two days in the same room.

What happens if nobody is home in Annandale?

The driver looks for shade: a covered porch, a carport, behind a side gate. Most homes here have one of the three. Put the instruction in your order notes, because a wrapped bunch left in full sun on a concrete step in January loses a day of vase life inside an hour.

Can you deliver to the Palmetum or the Blackhawk Memorial?

Yes, with a person meeting it. The Palmetum is a public botanic garden off Nathan Street, and the Blackhawk Memorial inside it has no letterbox and nobody to sign, so the order needs a mobile number in the notes. A wreath or sheaf built to stand outdoors suits it better than a vase.

Do you deliver to Annandale on a Sunday?

No. Deliveries run Monday to Saturday, Saturday cutoff 10am. An order placed on a Sunday goes out on the Monday run. For a Monday morning arrival, place it over the weekend and note the date you want.

Ivy's Netball Week in Annandale

Ivy played four days of netball at Murray Sporting Complex in 2023. Day four, they won. Almost every family had flown in for the tournament, and when it ended, every single one of them donated their camp chair. The pile next to the clubhouse was two storeys high. Thousands of chairs. In all my years I have never seen anything quite like it. Siobhan and I spent that week eating at the Annandale Village shops and walking the river path before the heat kicked in.

* Andrew, Ivy and Siobhan after the final at Murray Sporting Complex, Annandale, 2023. The camp chair mountain was behind us.

Andrew, Ivy and Siobhan Thomson at Murray Sporting Complex Annandale after netball finals 2023

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How to Order Flowers to Annandale

Same Day Cutoff

2pm weekdays, 10am Saturdays. No Sunday delivery. A same-day order into Annandale lands in the afternoon, and ordering at 9am buys the florist margin the 1:45pm order does not have.

Delivery $16.95

Flat to Annandale and the suburbs around it. The rate does not change if your address is at the far end of the suburb from the crossing, because we subsidise the difference to keep one price across the network.

Contact

Call 1300 360 469, 7am to 6pm weekdays and 10am Saturdays. Changes to the address, card message or date go to [email protected].

The Wet Season, the Crossings and Your Order

Two things shape a delivery run here and distance is neither. The first is the river. Annandale is strung along the south bank with a crossing at each end, so a driver coming from the wrong side adds a loop no map app warns you about, and morning runs get grouped by which bridge serves the address. The second is the wet. Cyclone Yasi came through this suburb in February 2011, and every wet season since brings storm cells that can close a road with an hour of warning. When that happens the run gets rebuilt and an afternoon delivery becomes a late-afternoon one. If the recipient is out, name the shaded spot in your order notes: a covered porch, the carport, behind the side gate. Concrete in an October sun will cook a wrapped bunch faster than any of us would like to admit. Order before 2pm today and the flowers are at their door this afternoon.

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After You Order

Your order gets a number and goes out to one of our partner florists near Annandale as a paid job, with your address and your card message attached. There is no live tracking link, because the process is a person making flowers and a person driving them. To change the address, the message or the date, email [email protected] or ring 1300 360 469 before the build starts that morning.

If it has not arrived by close of business, ring us the same day. We chase the florist directly, and we can ask for a photograph of what went out.

Siobhan, on the calls that come back

I take those calls. Somebody rings and says the flowers have not arrived, or they arrived and the colour is not what was in the picture. Colour comes up most. A tonal order is the hardest brief in the shop and a substitution in the wrong direction shows immediately, so we changed the process: if a florist cannot match the palette they ring us before they build, and we ring you. It costs us a delivery slot some days, and I would rather lose the slot than have you find out at the other end. Most of the time the flowers are on the van, or in a shaded spot the recipient has not looked at yet.

Silence at the other end means nothing, by the way. People open their door, put the flowers on the kitchen table and get on with their day, and the thank-you arrives when it arrives. Saturday orders close at 10am and we are on the phone from 7am on weekdays.

ABN: 17 830 858 659

We Also Deliver Nearby

Each of these pages carries detail this one does not repeat: Aitkenvale has the hospital run, Kirwan has the school-zone timing on the far side of the river, Heatley has the aged care corridor.

Townsville Aitkenvale Kirwan Heatley Idalia

About the Author

Andrew and Siobhan Thomson, co-founders of Lily's Florist

Andrew Thomson

Co-founder, Lily's Florist

I spent a week in Annandale in 2023 for Ivy's netball. Four days of games at Murray Sporting Complex, mornings on the river path, evenings hunting for air conditioning. I know how the suburb is laid out, where the schools cluster along Yolanda Drive and Gartrell Drive, and what Annandale Village looks like at 7am when you need coffee before the first whistle.

Siobhan and I started Lily's Florist in 2009, out of a flower shop we bought in Kingscliff in 2006. The network now runs to more than 800 partner florists around the country. There is more on how the business works, and who is behind it, on our About Us page.

* The original Kingscliff shop, bought 2006. The brand and network came three years later.