Flowers Delivered to Bohle Daily

Why I Would Not Send Asiatic Lilies to a Warehouse on Ingham Road

Anna, qualified florist | fifteen years on the bench, thousands of Australia-wide orders taken from the Pottsville office

Most florist sites will sell you any flower you ask for and let you find out the hard way whether it suits the address. I would rather tell you up front. Asiatic lilies are beautiful and they get searched for constantly, but the pollen drops orange onto whatever sits underneath the bloom, and at a Bohle industrial address that is usually paperwork, a hi-vis jacket on a hook, or someone's lunch on the bench. The stain does not come out. I took enough calls from people whose recipient had orange streaks across a work shirt to know it is not a rare event, it is the standard outcome if nobody strips the anthers first.

The fix takes thirty seconds. The florist pinches the anthers off each floret as it opens, before the pollen sets. If you want lilies sent into the estate anyway, put it in the delivery notes and the partner florist covering this run will do it without argument.

The caravan park on Ingham Road is a different problem again. Those sites are small, and a tall lily bunch in a cylinder vase eats up counter space that does not exist in a van annexe. Over the years I steered park deliveries toward compact box arrangements or a wrapped bunch the recipient could rest on a shelf without rearranging the kitchen. The ones I remember calls about were usually from a son or daughter worried the flowers would not fit. They always fit, once the florist knew it was going to a site rather than a house.

Workplace deliveries into the estate are their own category. Reception signs for it, moves it to a bench or counter, and the recipient walks past it at smoko. What survives a morning on a steel bench in a warehouse is not a delicate stem. Carnations, chrysanthemums, gerberas, a mixed native combination, protea if you want to make a statement. I would steer away from open roses and hydrangeas there in summer, because the warehouse air conditioning strips the humidity out of the air and those petals dry from the edges inward by mid-afternoon.

How an Order Ends Up on a Reception Desk on Ingham Road

The partner florist covering Bohle works from a bench where the flowers came in that morning off the Rocklea market truck. The order pings through to their inbox within the hour, usually while they are conditioning the day's stock. They build it, then they drive it. Twelve minutes from the shop to the industrial estate on a normal Tuesday. Longer on a wet-season afternoon when Ingham Road is slow.

* What happens to your order when it hits the Lily's Florist flower network, from confirmation to the delivery address.

After You Order

Once your order goes through, it hits our system the same way every order has since 2009. Payment confirms automatically, and the address, card message and any delivery notes go to the partner florist covering the northern Townsville runs. That florist has the order on the bench within the hour on a normal weekday. On a Saturday order the cutoff is 10am and the same run happens on a tighter window. When the address is on the industrial estate, the driver runs it between the morning residential deliveries and the afternoon school pick-up window, so the flowers land at reception in time to be logged and moved before the recipient comes through.

If something goes wrong, ring us on 1300 360 469 or email [email protected] the same day with a photo of the arrangement. I ring the florist myself and ask what happened. The fix usually lands before the day is over. Most problems come down to a substitution the florist made without checking, and that is fixable if we hear about it early, not three days later.

A note from Siobhan

Andrew handles the operational side and he is better at it than I am. What I can add is this. When the flowers arrive and the recipient does not ring back straight away, it does not mean anything went wrong. Someone in the caravan park on a Tuesday morning might have the radio on and the door shut. A bloke at a warehouse reception is probably on the forklift when his flowers land, and he will not see them until smoko. The staff at reception signed for it and put it on the counter. He will find it in an hour. Give the day a bit of room before you assume the worst. The photo is usually in your inbox by evening.

If it is still bothering you by the next morning, call. That is what the number is for.