Flowers to Berry NSW, Nearly Two in Five Locals Over 65

You are most likely a fair way from Berry, wishing you could be there in person. A delivery is the nearest thing to it today, and most flowers sent here come that way, from a son in Sydney or a daughter in Wollongong who cannot make the drive. I am Andrew, one of the two who started Lily's Florist, and I knew Berry as a kid from the back seat of the family car on that same trip. Order by 2pm and it is at their door this afternoon.

Order online by 2pm · from $42.95 · $16.95 delivery Phone 1300 360 469

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A real customer review, sent to Berry

"I purchased these flowers for my stepmother who had just lost her sister. They really brightened her day. The flowers were beautiful."

Jo Billyard, verified customer on Product Review

Read this review on Product Review

A note back from Andrew and Siobhan

Thanks Jo, and thank you for the photo. I can see why your stepmother responded the way she did. It is a full, generous arrangement, the kind that holds its own on a bench and keeps giving for a week or more, which is what natives do in a vase.

For someone who has just lost a sister, a lasting arrangement at home is a gentle sort of company. It asks nothing of her, just sits there being something good to look at on the hard days, and a lift on one of those days is no small thing. You were thinking of her at exactly the right moment.

It was beautiful, and it reached her when she needed it most. Kind of you to have sent it, over to Berry.

Andrew & Siobhan, Lily's Florist

Why flowers sent to Berry tend to last longer than the ones I took for the city

Anna, qualified florist | fifteen years on the bench, three of them taking orders for addresses right across the country

People assume a flower sent to a country town has travelled further and turned up more tired. With Berry it often outlasts the same order to the city, and the callers who worried most about that, ringing from the city sure their flowers would arrive worn out, were the ones I had the best news for. The reason is the weather. Berry has a cool, maritime climate, mid-teens for a good part of the year, and cool air is the single biggest thing that buys a cut flower a few more days in the vase.

A cut flower ages faster in heat, that is the whole of it. Ranunculus that gives you a week in a Brisbane summer will hold for the better part of three weeks in a Berry winter, because the cool slows the whole process down, the way a fridge does. A caller once told me the peonies her mother received in Berry were still going at eighteen days. Sent in winter, into that climate, I was not surprised.

So the advice changes by the month. Through winter and the cooler shoulder seasons, a Berry address holds flowers longer than almost anywhere warmer, so it is worth spending on stems that reward the wait, like ranunculus, tulips and lisianthus. Come February, when the coast turns humid, I steer people off tightly packed garden roses and hydrangeas that trap moisture and bruise, and onto natives and chrysanthemum. Right flower, right month. That is most of the job.

From a Cool Room to a Berry Doorstep

A Berry order does not get packed off a line in some depot. It goes to a working florist with a cool room near the town, who makes it up by hand the morning it goes out. That means someone you cannot get to this week still gets a proper arrangement, built for them that day.

* What actually happens to your order once it lands in the Lily's Florist network.

What happens to your order when it hits the Lily's Florist network

Order online or by phone before 2pm on a weekday

Sent to a partner florist near Berry as a paid order

Built that morning in the florist's cool room

Run out on the florist's own delivery round

Handed to the door, the same afternoon

What People Send to Berry, and How to Get It Right

The town is older and quieter than most places we deliver, so a lot of what gets sent to Berry goes to a church, a hospital bed, or a room in aged care. In those places the small details are what make the flowers land, more than the size of the bunch. Plenty of eightieth and ninetieth birthdays come through too, and the same care applies.

When the Flowers Are Going to a Funeral, or the Family Home

If you are reading this card, the news has probably already landed, and you are trying to do the one useful thing you can from wherever you happen to be.

It usually goes one of two ways. For the service, flowers go to the church, usually St Stephen's Anglican or St Michael's Catholic for Berry families, and they need to be there at least a day ahead with the service time confirmed. A funeral arrangement or a wreath or sheaf works for the church. For the family, an arrangement sent to the home in the days after the funeral is often the one that gets noticed, because the church flowers blur together and the home is where the quiet hits.

On what to actually send, white does the work here. White roses, white lilies, white chrysanthemum, all of it reads right for an Anglican or Catholic service, and none of it asks questions. If it is going to the graveside at Berry General, say so when you order, because a graveside piece needs to be built to sit in the weather without a vase. A line like "thinking of you all" on the card is plenty. You do not have to find the perfect words.

Sending to Someone in One of Berry's Aged Care Homes?

If you cannot get down to Berry as often as you would like, you are in good company. A lot of these orders come from grown-up kids in the city whose mum or dad made the move down years ago, and the flowers stand in for the visit you would make if the drive were shorter.

Berry is one of the oldest towns on this stretch of coast, a median age of 57 and nearly two in five residents over 65, so it carries more aged care than its size would suggest. Bupa and the Grange are on Victoria Street, Uniting is close by, and which home it is changes the delivery. From what our florists have seen, reception takes the flowers and a staff member carries them through, so a room name or number on the order saves a lot of wandering. A short thinking of you note lands better than a long one.

If the home has a dementia wing, keep it simple and stable. A low box arrangement that cannot be knocked over, familiar flowers like roses and chrysanthemum, and nothing strongly scented in a shared room. The arrangements that work there are the ones that look after themselves for a week, because nobody on the floor has time to fuss over water changes.

At David Berry Hospital, the Ward Changes What You Send

When you send flowers to a hospital, you are often not sure whether the person is on the mend or near the end. At David Berry Hospital that uncertainty is built into the building itself, and which way it falls changes what you should send.

The hospital on Tannery Road runs a rehabilitation ward and the Karinya palliative care unit, side by side. For someone in rehab after a stroke or surgery, this is a get well visit in the proper sense, often a stay of several weeks, so the flowers have time to settle in and be enjoyed. Karinya is gentler. From what our florists have seen, the arrangements that suit it are smaller, low in fragrance, and built to sit quietly beside a bed in a shared room. And if you are sending after someone has passed in Karinya, it is kinder to send the flowers to the family home once the person has been collected.

Anna on the two wards

For a rehab patient, give them something that keeps changing. Alstroemeria opens new buds over a week, so there is a little movement to watch from the bed, and it stands up to ward warmth. I would skip oriental lilies for either ward, the pollen stains and the scent fills a small room fast, and not everyone in a shared bay wants to smell lilies all day. Asiatic, pollen-free, is the safer call. And whatever you write on the card for Karinya, steer clear of "get well soon." "Thinking of you" is the line that fits.

David Berry Hospital: which ward changes what you send

One building, two very different visits. Add the ward to your order and it reaches the right bed.

Rehabilitation ward Recovery, often a stay of weeks

SendSomething that keeps opening, like alstroemeria

SkipOriental lilies, for the pollen and heavy scent

On the card"Get well soon" fits

Karinya palliative unit Gentle, the final days

SendSmall and low in fragrance, a soft posy

SkipLarge or strongly scented pieces

On the card"Thinking of you", never "get well soon"

From what our florists have seen, staff carry flowers to the room from reception. If someone has passed in Karinya, it is kinder to send to the family home once they have been collected.

Order before 2pm on a weekday and the flowers are at the door that afternoon.

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When You Know the Person But Not the Right Flower

Plenty of orders do not fit a neat occasion. You know the person, you know roughly the mood, and you are stuck on the rest.

When a caller could not decide, I usually steered them to a native arrangement for a Berry address, and it is not a throwaway pick. A lot of Berry's residents made the move down from the city for the bush and the quiet, and a piece built from banksia, protea and gum quietly tells them you understood that. It also holds for weeks. There is a review near the top of this page from someone who did exactly that, a native arrangement sent over to Berry for a grieving stepmother, still going strong a week on. That is natives doing what they do.

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Sympathy at Home Thinking of You Milestone Birthday Get Well Wreaths & Sheaves Celebration

How to Order Flowers to Berry

Phone

1300 360 469
7am to 6pm weekdays
10am Saturdays
Or order online any time.

Same Day Cutoff

Order by 2pm on a weekday for same day to Berry, or by 10am on a Saturday. No Sunday deliveries. For Mother's Day and other peak dates, order a few days ahead. Through the summer holidays, order in the morning where you can so the flowers are not waiting in the afternoon heat.

Delivery $16.95

A flat $16.95 across Berry's 2535 postcode and the surrounding Shoalhaven addresses. Town deliveries are straightforward. The rural-residential pockets out toward Broughton Vale and Kangaroo Valley Road have long driveways and lot numbers, so add any access notes when you order.

Sending From a Distance, to a Town 140km Away

Most Berry orders come from somewhere else, often Sydney, and the worry is always the same: will it actually turn up, and will it be on time. The honest answer is that a florist near Berry, one who knows the roads and the addresses and which homes are behind a gate, gets your flowers to the right door the first time, down the long driveways and through the gates that trip up a stranger. That local knowledge is what the 2pm cutoff buys, the time to source, build and get it there before six. Order before 2pm today and it reaches their door this afternoon.

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After You Order

Once you have ordered, the job goes to a florist in or near Berry as a paid order they take on for the day. They build it from their cool room that morning and run it out on their own round. There is nothing else you need to do.

If a detail needs changing, a room number, a gate code, the spelling of a name, call the team on 1300 360 469, 7am to 6pm on weekdays and from 10am on Saturdays, or email [email protected]. One thing we changed after a few near-misses: on hospital and aged care orders we now ask for a mobile number for the recipient or a family member, because a rehab patient can be discharged while the flowers are still on the road, and one quick call sorts out where they should go instead.

A word from Siobhan, the other half of this

Andrew and I have run this as a mum and dad business from the start, two desks that turned into a houseful, decisions still made at the dinner table and on the side of a netball court. So I know the bit nobody warns you about: the quiet after you have sent flowers to someone a long way off. You order, you picture it arriving, and then you hear nothing for a while. That silence is almost never bad news. People who are grieving or unwell often take a day or two to ring back, and when they do it is usually to say the flowers are still going strong on the kitchen bench.

Sending something was the right call. It nearly always is.

If you are unsure about anything, the phone is faster than email, and there is a real person on the other end of it.

ABN: 17 830 858 659

We Also Deliver Nearby

Shoalhaven Heads Gerroa Culburra Beach

About the Author

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

Andrew Thomson

Co-founder, Lily's Florist

I grew up in Sydney, and like a lot of Sydney kids of my era I knew the South Coast mostly from the back of the car, a long hot drive down the Princes Highway with my sister Sarah and me asking how much further. Ours was one of those old Volvo station wagons with the extra seats folded up in the boot, facing backwards out the rear window, the kind of seven-seater that is probably illegal now. So I mostly watched Berry arrive in reverse, the place we always got stuck, the bottleneck before the last run home, where we would pile out at the Berry Museum to kill the time while the traffic crawled.

The bypass opened in 2017 and the jam I remember is gone, but the town I used to wait in turned out to be one worth stopping for. Siobhan and I started Lily's Florist in 2009, a few years after buying a little flower and gift shop up in Kingscliff in 2006. Two decades on it is a network of more than 800 florists, still run by the two of us. You can read the whole story, fax machines and all, on our about page.

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