You know Mum's building, maybe even the floor, and her birthday is today (it's always today, isn't it). Pop the building name, her unit number and her mobile in the notes, and the birthday flowers for Mum get past the lobby on the first try.

I learnt that in 2007, at the counter of our little shop on Marine Parade in Kingscliff with Asha on my hip. An order came in for Marine Parade, and Andrew was halfway out the door to walk it up our own street before I read the postcode: 4216, Biggera Waters. He drove it up the coast instead, then stood in a tower lobby for twenty minutes because nobody had written the unit number. Holding the flowers.

Anna, on lilies: they're the flower I'd warn about in a unit full of soft furnishings. Pinch the orange anthers off as each bloom opens, because dry pollen bonds to fabric and won't brush out of a couch. The 2 Lily Stems In Glass Vase land already standing in water, so nobody has to go looking for a vase.

Your nan sounded a bit flat on the phone on Sunday, and you can't get there until next month. For Harbour Quays Aged Care on Compass Drive or Labrador Aged Care Residence on Brighton Street, add her full name and room number. In our experience reception takes the flowers and a staff member walks them along, so the room number is what carries our thinking of you flowers the last few metres to her.

Card idea: "Thinking of you, Nan. Talk Sunday."

Anna, on small rooms

Care rooms are small and the bedside table fills up fast. A vase arrangement sits where it's put, and nobody's hunting for scissors. Go unscented in case the room is shared: gerberas carry no perfume, so the 3 Gerberas In A Vase won't bother anyone.

The service is done, the casseroles have stopped, and the house has gone quiet. That's when sympathy flowers for the home land. If it's one of the houses on the canals, put your own mobile in the notes too, so if nobody answers the door the florist can ring you before the flowers ever sit on a hot step.

Flowers won't fix any of it, and you know that. Still, the cards get kept, tucked in a drawer for years, long after the flowers have gone.

Card idea: "Thinking of you all, with love."

White lilies for sympathy suit a quiet house. The buds open one after another, so the bunch still looks new a week later.

Sometimes all you've got is the address and a feeling they'd like something nice. Anna has a view on this one.

For a unit full of glass, the Gorgeous White Arrangement. It comes in its own vase, so it's ready the minute it's through the door, and white flowers kept in a cool spot out of the sun stay crisp. No colour to get wrong, either.