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Broken Head Flowers, Down the One Road In

Barely 400 people live on Broken Head, and a good share of the flowers we send there are for the ones who no longer do. Someone who moved away and left a parent behind. A friend you only see at Christmas. The house you love and get back to a few times a year. I am Siobhan, and my husband Andrew and I have run Lily's Florist since 2009. If you are ordering from a long way off, and quietly aware it has been too long, you are the person most of these orders come from. You know the place better than the map does, and getting the flowers to the right door is the part we take off your hands.

There is one road onto Broken Head. It comes in from the Suffolk Park side, narrows down near the beach, and stops there, with no second way out. More than a quarter of the houses along it stand empty most of the year, owned by people who come back for the holidays. So the one thing worth checking before you order is whether your person is actually there that week. Put it in the notes, and the florist confirms someone is home before the van makes the run down.

Order Online by 2pm

Flowers from $42.95, $16.95 delivery

Or Phone 1300 360 469

7am-6pm weekdays, 10am Sat

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Why a Broken Head Doorstep Is Harder on Flowers Than the Town Just Up the Coast

Anna, qualified florist | the one who built our coastal bunches on the bench for fifteen years

People assume Byron Bay and Broken Head get the same weather. They do not. The town sits tucked in behind Cape Byron, while the headland at Broken Head is out on its own edge, so it catches the sea breeze earlier and harder. The nearest long record I trust is the Cape Byron station up the coast: mean maximums that only swing from about nineteen degrees in July to twenty-eight in January, and salt riding the wind most days of the year.

The humid sea air is actually kind to flowers, it keeps the petals hydrated. The salt riding on that air is the problem. Crystals land on soft petals and pull the moisture back out through the skin of the flower, the cuticle, and thin-petalled stems go papery at the edges inside two days. Roses and hydrangeas struggle out there. Banksia, waxflower and orchids barely register it, because the waxy skin on the stem sheds the salt before it settles. Before Lily's I put in a couple of years on the bench at a little boutique florist at Salt, up the coast at Kingscliff, conditioning stems in the same salt air. Waxflower was the first thing I reached for on anything bound for an exposed headland address. It is as tough as they come on salt and heat, with one weakness worth knowing: keep it clear of the fruit bowl, because the ethylene coming off ripening fruit makes the whole lot drop off the stem at once.

So if you want something that lasts out there, send natives. The banksia and tea-tree in a native bunch are the same plants growing wild in the reserve behind the beach, the one with Cocked-Hat Rocks standing off it, on Arakwal country that has been cared for a great deal longer than the road has existed. They were built for that salt and wind. A soft garden bunch will look tired by the second morning on an exposed verandah. Natives are still standing a fortnight on, which is the difference between a bunch someone glances at once and one they keep noticing on the bench for two weeks.

How an Order Reaches a Headland With No Shop On It

There is no warehouse behind this. Your flowers are made the morning they go out, by a florist who works this stretch of coast, from stock that comes up from the Brisbane market a couple of hours north. That is the whole idea of the network.

* What actually happens to your order once it lands with us.

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

Order online or by phone before 2pm

Sent to a partner florist near the area as a paid order

Built that morning from stock bought at market

Loaded for the run down the one road in

Handed to the door, or held until someone is home

What People Send to Broken Head, and How to Get It There Right

The harder question with Broken Head is rarely the flowers themselves. It is getting them to land right on a headland where half the houses stay quiet most of the year. Here is what we send most, and how to get each one to the door. If in doubt, a native bunch is the safe bet out here.

The House You Only Get To a Few Times a Year

Some of the kindest orders we send to Broken Head carry no occasion at all, just a way of saying I am thinking of you, or I am sorry it has been so long, to someone who only sees the place part of the year. There is no rush on these, and no right week for them.

Send them when it feels right, not when a calendar says to. A good few of these come from family overseas, marking someone here they cannot get back to see. If the house might be sitting empty, a line in the notes is all we need.

Anna has a view on what to actually put in the bunch.

Keep it simple and keep it hardy: natives, or a mixed bunch built around waxflower and chrysanthemums, the stems that do not sulk if they sit a day before someone finds them. What stayed with me from these calls was the hesitation. People would go quiet on the phone, second-guessing whether it had been too long to send anything at all. It never has been. The flowers do the reaching for you, and in three years on those phones I never had a sender tell me they wished they had not.

Sending Sympathy Flowers When There's No Local Service To Send Them To

When someone on the headland loses a person, there is nowhere local for a service. The little memorial church closed in 2021, and there is no funeral home or chapel in Broken Head at all. So condolence flowers almost always go to a private home rather than a venue, and that changes what works.

A quiet arrangement left at the door, with a card that simply reads thinking of you and the family, tends to land better than anything grand. If the service is being held elsewhere, over in Byron or down in Ballina, funeral flowers are a different order and we will time them to the day.

Anna on what to send a grieving house

People reach for white lilies out of habit. For a home where no one is expecting a delivery, I would think twice. Oriental lilies drop pollen that stains, and a scent that fills a small closed-up room fast. If it has to be lilies, a pollen-free Asiatic gives you the same white without either problem. Otherwise something calmer holds up better: white or cream natives, or a soft chrysanthemum arrangement that will still look right if it sits a day before anyone gets to it. Flowers will not undo any of it. They just say someone was thinking of the family when it mattered.

Birthdays on the Headland, and Getting the Timing Right

Both ends of Broken Head have birthdays worth marking: the younger families who came for the surf, and the sea-changers who arrived decades ago and never left. For the older crowd, a 70th birthday arrangement that reads like an occasion, rather than a quick grab, is usually what people are after.

The thing that trips people up here is timing. A birthday bunch has to land on the day, and on a headland where plenty of houses sit empty half the year, that means making sure your person is actually there to open the door for it. Flag the date and we will work to it.

The mistake I saw most was someone sending something delicate to a beach house for a summer birthday, then wondering why it looked tired by the afternoon. December and January are the hot months out there, and an exposed verandah bakes. For a summer birthday I would send a bright native mix, or gerberas the florist has wired so the heads hold in the heat, rather than a hand-tied bunch of soft blooms. It will still look like a celebration when they walk out and find it.

Order before 2pm on a weekday and the flowers can be down that road the same afternoon.

Browse Flower Bunches

Still Not Sure What Belongs On That Doorstep?

If none of those quite fit, that is normal. A lot of Broken Head orders are just someone a long way off reaching for a person, or a place, they love, with no occasion attached at all. Some are a thank-you to the neighbour or caretaker who has kept an eye on an empty house, and come Christmas, when the headland fills right up for a few short weeks, plenty are a thank-you for a summer spent here. If that is more the mark, a simple bunch under $60 does the job without any fuss.

When in doubt out here, send natives. A banksia and waxflower bunch stands up to the salt, the heat and a day's wait on a quiet doorstep better than anything else we carry, and it looks like it belongs on that coast because it grew on it. Tell us in the notes if there is any chance the house is empty, and the florist will confirm before it goes. If you would rather browse the range, our native flowers are the place to start.

Browse other categories

Anniversary Gift Hampers Roses Bright & Mixed Get Well Just Because

How to Order Flowers to Broken Head

Phone

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

Same Day Cutoff

Order by 2pm on a weekday, or 10am on a Saturday, for same-day delivery. No deliveries on a Sunday. On the hottest summer days the florist runs the exposed addresses early, so the sooner your order lands, the better it sits.

Delivery $16.95

A flat $16.95 anywhere we deliver. Broken Head has one road in and out, so a missed delivery is a full return trip rather than a quick second attempt. That is why confirming someone is home matters more here than most places.

The Empty-House Rule

More than a quarter of the houses on the headland sit empty most of the year. If there is any chance your person is away, leave a mobile number and a line in the delivery notes, and the florist will ring to confirm someone is there before making the run, rather than leaving flowers to bake on a doorstep no one opens. If you are sending to the Broken Head Holiday Park, the only business on the road, give the site or cabin number, because 'somewhere in the park' is not an address a driver can find. Order before 2pm today and the flowers can be at the door this afternoon.

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After You Order

Once you have ordered, the order goes straight to a florist near the area, who builds it that morning and takes it out when the day's deliveries head down the coast (they know that road better than we ever could). You do not need to do anything else. If you left a mobile number, that is the one the florist uses if they need to check the house. And if the flowers land and you hear nothing back for a day or two, do not read into it. People out here are slow to their phones, a quiet house stays quiet, and the silence is rarely bad news.

If anything looks off when it arrives, or you do not hear that it landed, ring us on 1300 360 469 between 7am and 6pm on a weekday, or email [email protected]. The sooner we know, the more we can do about it.

A word from Andrew, who built the delivery side

In the early days Siobhan and I drove every delivery ourselves, so a wasted run to a house with nobody home was never a line on a spreadsheet, it was a lost afternoon and a tank of petrol. The orders that go wrong on a headland like this are almost always that same story: flowers sent to a holiday house, nobody in, and on a dead-end road the whole trip is gone and the bunch sits until someone stumbles on it. So we changed how it works. If there is any doubt about someone being home, the florist rings first and sorts out a time, or leaves it with a neighbour who is expecting it. Not a perfect system. A long way better than a box wilting on an empty step.

Same-day still runs on a Saturday if the order is in by 10am, with no delivery on a Sunday. Phone is quickest if something is time-sensitive, email is fine for anything that can wait a day.

ABN: 17 830 858 659

We Also Deliver Nearby

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About the Author

Siobhan Thomson

Co-founder, Lily's Florist

I am Siobhan. Andrew and I started Lily's Florist in 2009, and this stretch of the Northern Rivers coast was one of the very first places we built the network out to, back when it was a handful of partner florists and a lot of hope. I have not lived on Broken Head, but we have been sending flowers along this coast for the better part of fifteen years, and the orders tell me our florists know it well.

These days it is still a mum-and-dad business, run around school pick-ups and the netball court, with a team on the phones and 800-plus partner florists doing the growing and building. You can read the whole story, the sea change and all, on our about page. For the wider area, our Byron Bay flowers page covers the town just up the coast.

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