Same Day Flowers to Ashendon, the Forest Suburb Two Foresters Named

Flowers will not fix what has happened. You know that already. What they do is stand in for you when you cannot stand in the room yourself, and say the thing you cannot find words for from a distance. The decision that matters is where they go.

Condolences for the family go to the home. Flowers for the service go to the funeral director, in the Armadale area for most of this catchment, with the service date on the order so they arrive timed to it and not before. From what our florists have seen, a wreath or sheath goes to the chapel and a posy or arrangement goes to the house, and saying which you want up front saves the mix-up that causes real upset.

This is Whadjuk Noongar country, and that shapes what I would send. The callers ringing me about an Aboriginal funeral asked the same thing every time, whether natives were the right choice. Where a family welcomes flowers at all, they usually are. Banksia, kangaroo paw and wattle, the stems growing in the forest around them, carry a meaning an imported rose never will. It is never a given, though, so my answer never changed: ask the family first whether they have a cultural or religious preference. White is the safe colour almost everywhere, and red is the one to keep well away from a funeral. A loud, bright bunch tends to stand out wrong lined up among the white tributes, so soft tones win when you are unsure. A plain line like "thinking of you and your family" on the card does more work than anything clever, and it is the card that stays, tucked in a drawer long after the flowers are gone.

A first grandchild, or a close friend's baby, and you are watching it happen through a phone screen from interstate. You want something at the bedside that says you were paying attention.

Most of the babies for this corridor arrive at the Maud Bellas unit at Armadale Health Service, down the hill off Albany Highway. A new baby gift goes to the main reception there, and the staff carry it through to the ward, usually within a couple of hours of it landing, so the order needs the mother's name and her ward, not the baby's. Maternity stays are short, so it is worth a quick check that she is still in before we send, and the day after the birth tends to be calmer than the day of.

Anna on what a maternity ward can actually take

Keep two rules and you will not go wrong. No lilies, the pollen is a problem around a newborn and the scent is too much in a small room. And send it in a vase or a box, never a hand-tied bunch, because a ward keeps no spare vases and a wrapped bunch sits on the bench unhandled for hours while the staff are flat out. Low scent, soft colours, and if you do not know the baby's name or the family's taste, gender-neutral whites and greens never miss. Something that takes up a bit of bench space and no more. If the baby has gone to special care, hold off on flowers altogether until mum and bub are back on an open ward.

Someone you care about is laid up, maybe down at Armadale, maybe sent on to one of the big hospitals across town. Get-well flowers can be a cheer for the mend or a hand held from a distance, and you do not always know which, so something warm and steady covers it either way.

If they are on a general ward, a get-well arrangement goes to reception and the staff log it through, the same as the maternity run. The one time to hold off is intensive care, oncology or a transplant ward, where in our experience flowers tend to be kept out for good reason, so it pays to know which ward they are on before you send and to wait until they move to an open one. A line like "hope you are on the mend" is all the card needs.

A bloke rang me once from Kalgoorlie wanting the biggest arrangement we did for his mum in a hospital bed, and I talked him down to a small box of carnations and chrysanths, and not to save him money either. A hospital tray table is the size of a dinner plate, so the giant bunch ends up on the floor by the bin where she cannot see it. Small, low scent, in its own water so nobody has to hunt for a vase, and pick the stems that hold without fuss. Carnations will run two to three weeks in a cool lounge, chrysanths longer, and neither throws scent around a ward. It is the bunch that still looks alive when she goes home.

Plenty of orders here fit none of those, a birthday, or a hello that is long overdue, so I will let Anna tell you what she would send.

Most people reach for the big mixed bright bunch, and there is nothing wrong with that. But here, with the jarrah forest behind the houses one of the richest wildflower patches in the state, I would steer you to the native bunch nearly every time. It outlasts anything else we send, and it shifts as it goes, the banksia and leucadendron holding their shape while the softer stems open and fade, so the recipient sees a slightly different arrangement on day five than on day one. The variable stock a hills florist is working with on a given morning is no obstacle, and on a Darling Range verandah it reads like it belongs there rather than like it was flown in for the occasion. If you genuinely do not know, that is the one I would send.