Flowers to Banksia Grove, Named After the One That Lasts

A baby arrives and you want something there that afternoon, except you are not sure if mum and the baby are still on the ward or already back home by the time the flowers turn up. We did our own deliveries with a newborn screaming in the back seat in the early days, so the timing on a new-baby order is the part I feel in my stomach.

Joondalup Health Campus is about five minutes down the road. Send it as new-baby flowers and, from what our florists see, maternity there takes them at the front desk with the mother's full name and ward, and staff carry them through. The catch is that new mums often go home within a day or two, so if you are cutting it close, send to the house instead. Nearly every home in this suburb is a standalone place with a porch, so a daytime drop is easy even when nobody is in. If you are stuck across town or interstate, the flowers are you at the bedside until you can be there yourself.

Anna, qualified florist

Skip the lilies for a newborn. The pollen stains and the scent is too heavy in a small room, and I steered a lot of callers off them over the years for exactly that. Go with something soft and pollen-free, a pollen-free Asiatic or a gentle gerbera mix, and ask for a box rather than a hand-tie. The ward keeps no spare vases, and a box holds its own water. Neutral tones cover you if you do not know boy or girl yet. One line on the card is plenty: "so happy for you all."

These are the biggest families we deliver to in Perth, which means birthdays land all year, from the kids for mum, for a teenage daughter, for a friend two streets over you keep meaning to visit.

Most of these go to a home where, again, nobody is in until after five. Leave a delivery note with a safe spot and we will aim to get it there in the morning, before the day heats up. A covered entry is the norm out here, which helps more than people think.

The instinct is a big soft pastel bunch, and in January that is a mistake. Roses and hydrangeas left out in the open are a three-day flower at best in this suburb. If it is going to sit in the sun, push the order toward disbud chrysanthemums and carnations, both grown locally and both good for ten to fourteen days in that heat. Keep the gerberas and the soft romantic stuff for a winter birthday, or a delivery you know someone will be home to bring inside, because the hollow gerbera stem bends at the neck once the warmth gets at it.

One thing I picked up taking these orders: a Filipino debut, an eighteenth birthday, traditionally comes with eighteen roses, one for each year. Big suburb for it, too. If that is the birthday, tell the florist a debut and they will know exactly what you mean.

Banksia Grove is still filling in at the edges, new builds going up on the northern side, so a fair slice of what we send here is a welcome to people who have just picked up the keys and do not know a soul yet.

A house-warming gift goes to a home that is occupied and a bit excited, so this is the one order where someone is usually there to open the door. Put the family name on it and it lands fine.

Anna would point at the natives for this one.

Send a native bunch. It is the one welcome gift that actually says something about where they have landed, the same banksia and kangaroo paw growing in the reserve down the road, and from August into spring the WA wildflower season is on, so the range is at its best and its cheapest. A native bunch will still be going strong on the bench a fortnight after the last box is unpacked, long after most welcome gifts have been binned. It doubles as a thank-you when it is the neighbours who lent a hand on moving day.

Plenty of orders do not fit a baby or a birthday or a new house. Sometimes you just want to send something good to someone you cannot get to this week.

For this suburb, my default is the native bunch, every time. Banksia for the backbone, a protea head to anchor it, a couple of leucadendron stems that carry it past the fortnight, kangaroo paw for movement. Built right, it reads as deliberate, not like a handful of stems off the verge. It shrugs off the long wait for someone to get home, and it carries the one thing that makes a Banksia Grove delivery feel chosen for the place rather than pulled off a list. If you want colour over the sculptural natives, ask for a locally grown chrysanthemum mix, just as bright and good for a couple of weeks even when nobody is home to bring it in. Tell the florist the occasion and let them pick whatever came in strongest that morning.