Dolphin Heads Flower Delivery Today, Even to the Resort

You can't be at the table, so the flowers go instead. Most of our birthday flowers here go to houses; if they'll be at work, send them there with the business name. Plenty of homes sit empty all day, so put their mobile in the notes and the driver can ring, or find somewhere shady to leave them. Stuck? Start with the best-selling birthday flowers.

The yellow chrysanthemums in the Bright Bunch + Sparkling will be the last stems standing, about ten days in a warm room, and the fruit bowl doesn't bother them. Recut every stem on an angle before it goes into fresh water; a flat cut sits on the bottom of the vase and the stem can't drink.

They're on holiday for an anniversary or a birthday, and you can't be there. Start with anniversary flowers for a couple, or celebration flowers for a birthday away. In the notes, put the name the room is booked under and their check-out day. In our experience a resort desk looks guests up by booking name, holds the flowers and rings the room.

I learnt that in 2007 at Mantra at Salt in Kingscliff, where Siobhan and I had stayed the night before we bought the shop. The docket for an anniversary bunch had a surname and a room number. The couple had changed rooms. I walked a bunch of lilies twice round the pool in my shop apron before a woman on a sun lounge put her hand up. Reception would have found them in ten seconds. The desk on Beach Road does the same job, which is why the booking name goes in the notes.

Anna's call: a holiday room has a kettle, two glasses and no vase. The Blue Mist Including Vase & Chocolates comes in its own vase and goes straight on the table, inside, out of the sea air.

The notice says the service is in Mackay and you can't get there. Funeral flowers go to the funeral director, such as Newhaven Funerals on Harbour Road or Whitsunday Funerals on Shakespeare Street, with the name of the person who has died and the service time. Burial at Mount Bassett Cemetery? Mention it; parts of it are lawn, which changes what suits. Sympathy flowers to the house can follow a day or two later. Flowers fix nothing. People still remember who sent them. For the card, "Thinking of you all, with love" is enough.

Anna, on a lawn grave

Turf gives under a tall vase, and by afternoon it's on its side. A wreath lies flat. Whites and greens sit quietly beside the other tributes, and if the person loved colour, the Wreath With Pink Tones does the same job without shouting.

Get well flowers for someone on a ward at Mackay Base, or home from it. A thank-you to the neighbour who fed the cat. Thinking of you flowers from the other side of the country. None of them need a category. Anna has a pick for orders like these.

The Australian Natives Bunch: proteas, pincushions, waxflower and brunia, every one of them happy on a warm ward or in a house by the water. When the rest has finished, the brunia dries on the shelf and stays for months.