Order Flower Delivery to Dobroyd Point, Class or Chapel

It's their birthday and you won't be there for the knock. Most addresses in Dobroyd Point are houses within a street or two of Dobroyd Parade and the Bay Run, so on a fine afternoon nobody may be home. Put their mobile number in the notes.

I learnt that in 2008 on Riverside Drive, Tumbulgum, holding a 70th birthday bunch outside an empty house on the Tweed River. No mobile on the order. I stood there until the neighbour pointed at the river. The birthday girl came in off the water in a tinny and read the card on the pontoon. Different water here, same lesson. Our best-selling birthday flowers can all go out the same day.

Anna's call: if the house might be empty, send the 2 Lily Stems In Glass Vase. A wrapped bunch is fine for an hour or two on a shaded step, and natives cope for longer than that. For a long afternoon with softer stems, flowers already standing in water are the safer bet.

You have the funeral notice, and it names a church or a chapel. For a Mass at St Joan of Arc on Dalhousie Street, or a service at the White Lady Funerals chapel on Great North Road, Five Dock, send funeral flowers with the service time in the notes. In our experience the funeral director's team takes them in from there.

For the family home in the week after, send the Florists Choice Sympathy Bunch or other sympathy flowers for home. It's a small thing against all of it, and families often keep the cards for years. Card ideas: "Thinking of you all." or "With love, and so sorry."

At the church or chapel, a sheath lies flat on the casket and a wreath carries its own water in the foam, so neither needs a vase or a top-up through a long service. The White Lily & Rose Sheath is the one I'd pick, or anything from our white sympathy flowers.

Term's nearly over, or a teacher at Dobroyd Point Public on Waratah Street has done something for your kid you can't let slide. Add their full name and class. In our experience a school's front office gets flowers to the classroom or holds them until the bell, and the 3 Gerberas In A Vase saves anyone hunting the staffroom for a jug. More thank-you flowers here.

Anna, on a classroom windowsill

Gerberas turn their faces to the light. On a sunny sill they lean toward the glass by day two; a half turn of the vase each morning and they stand up straight again.

A neighbour who fed the dog for a fortnight, someone going through a rough patch, or no reason at all. Just because flowers and thinking of you flowers cover most of it, and the Australian Natives Bunch has been our bestseller since 2013.

Anna's pick: natives, when you don't know their taste. Woody stems drink slowly and don't flop overnight, and once the softer stems finish, banksia and leucadendron dry on a shelf for months.