Same Day Flowers to Burleigh Waters, SandBrook or Marymount

It's Mum's birthday and you're not in Burleigh Waters to see her. Put the full street address in, never just the lake, because the roads loop round the water. Around 2007 Andrew (my husband, and the one doing the driving that year) rang me from Dunlin Drive, looking at the birthday balloons tied to a letterbox on the other side of Burleigh Lake, with no road that went straight there (he says it was ten minutes of driving in circles, I say it was more like twenty). He got there in the end. Start with our birthday flowers for Mum or the best-selling birthday flowers.

The lilies in the Pastel Pink Lilies & Roses Arrangement keep opening for days. Pinch the orange anthers off each one as it opens. Dry lily pollen bonds to fabric, and a cream lounge is where most people find that out. If some does land, lift it with sticky tape; rubbing only pushes it in.

A teacher got your kid through a hard term, or a whole year, and you want them to know it was noticed. Across Marymount and Caningeraba State School there are thousands of students, so the teacher's full name and year level go in the notes; in our experience the front office signs for it and lets the teacher know. (Our youngest, Ivy, gave her own teachers a few of these over the years, and not one of them complained.) Our thank-you flowers are made for it. On the card: “Thank you for all of it. We noticed.”

Anna, on the staffroom bench

A staffroom bench or a teacher's desk has no vase, so send an arrangement in foam. The Bright Arrangement With Chocolates sits in a box of soaked foam, which is the vase: the stems drink from the foam, and the foam drinks whatever water goes on top. A splash every couple of days and it keeps going through the week.

Someone has died and you're trying to get it right from a long way off. For a service at Mary Mother of Mercy, the church up the hill at Marymount, order wreaths and sheaths the day before, with the church, the service time and the name of the person who died in the notes. If the family is at home, sympathy flowers for the home stay with them after the service is over. Flowers can't change what's happened, and nobody expects them to. They're still what the family notices on the bench at the end of a long day. On the card: “Sending all our love to you and the family.” or “So sorry. We're here when you need us.”

Anna's pick: the Gorgeous Whites Bunch for the house. White roses and soft greens don't compete with grief, and it arrives already standing in its glass vase, so nobody in that house has to go looking for one.

Some orders have no occasion at all: a new job, a rough week, a friend you keep meaning to ring. Anna has a view on these.

Florist's choice has no script to get wrong, so the florist can put some personality into it. Going to a sunny room on the lake? Add a line to the card asking them to keep it a couple of steps back from the glass, same as I said up top.