Flowers to Bickley That Last: Why a Hills Rose Holds Ten to Twelve Days

You are arranging this from wherever you are, for people who are not up to fielding questions. Flowers will not fix the day, and the family knows that as well as you do; what they do is say you are thinking of them when you cannot be in the room. The first thing to settle is where it goes. Condolence flowers go to the family home; flowers for the service go to the funeral director in the Kalamunda area, with the name and the date, and never both to the same address.

For a home delivery to an acreage block, the note on the order matters more than usual, because the family may well be out, and the florist will leave it somewhere safe and ring you if there is nowhere it can sit. A short card carries it: "Thinking of you and your family" is enough when the longer words will not come.

I keep these to white, cream and soft green, and I have a reason. In a secular or Anglican home, which is most of this valley, a white arrangement reads as respect without asking anyone to decode it, and it does not jar the way a bright bunch can among the other tributes. Lisianthus, white roses, a few chrysanthemums for the stems that outlast the week. If the family kept a garden up here, I would tuck in something native and quiet, a little Marri or muted foliage, so it looks like it belongs to the ridge rather than a city shop.

She is turning sixty or seventy and she has opinions about flowers, because the people who choose a valley like this usually do. The block works in your favour for delivery: with two or three cars to a household up here, someone is generally home, though the driver may still need to ring for the gate.

Put "leave at the front door" on the order and remember the front door can be a hundred metres off the road, so a line describing the house earns its keep. Get it there mid-morning if you can; Hills mornings can start with a medical run or a school drop down the hill.

Anna on what the Hills season is doing to the flowers

The month matters more here than it does on the coast. Through a Bickley winter the cool does lovely things to tulips and ranunculus, slowing the open so the recipient gets the full show instead of the quick collapse you get in a warm room. Come February I would lean the other way, to roses and chrysanthemums that shrug off a 28 degree afternoon, and I would keep hydrangeas and sweet peas off an acreage order unless someone can promise they will be indoors within the hour. Tell the florist the month and let them read it.

First sort which kind of recovery it is, because hospital and home want different things. Kalamunda Hospital is small and close, four to six kilometres down the hill, and from what our florists have seen, a bunch left at the main reception is logged by ward staff and walked through to the bedside, usually within a few hours. Give us the patient's full name and the ward; "Mum, Kalamunda" will not get there.

If they are recovering at home on a Hills block, it is the acreage delivery again, and the same note about the gate applies. A line for the card: "Thinking of you, take it easy" does the job without overdoing it.

On what to actually send to a hospital ward, Anna is firm.

Skip the lilies, or get the florist to strip the anthers first. Lily pollen on a hospital pillow is a stain and a complaint waiting to happen, and some wards turn strong scent away at the desk. I would send a box arrangement rather than a hand-tie, so it stands on its own and a busy nurse is not hunting for a vase. Gerberas, carnations, a few roses, chrysanthemums for length. Bright if the news is good, softer if you are not sure yet.

Not every reason for sending flowers has a tidy name on it. A dinner at one of the cellar doors, a thank-you to someone who had you up for the weekend, a bunch for no reason beyond the fact that it has been too long: none of that needs a label.

For the valley itself, this is where I point people to the natives. The wineries and the long lunches up here have a look to them, and an arrangement built around Bull Banksia, Marri and a bit of Stirlingia suits a Hills table the way a dozen roses never quite will. It also lasts, which counts when nobody is going to fuss over it. If you genuinely cannot pick, tell the florist the occasion and let them choose from what came in strong that morning; the orders that go best are usually the ones where someone trusted the bench.