Same Day Flower Delivery Helensburgh, Natives That Keep

It's Mum's birthday and you're in Sydney, or further. The flowers go to the house. Back when Andrew and I did the deliveries ourselves, a knock with no answer nearly always meant she'd popped out. So put a mobile number and a shady spot in the notes (the carport, the side door), because a sunny step finishes a bunch fast. Start with our birthday flowers for Mum or our 70th birthday flowers.

If she gardens, send the Australian Natives Bunch. If there's a banksia or a leucadendron in it, that stem can still be on her shelf three months later, which beats another vase to wash.

Someone you love is at the Garrawarra Centre on the Princes Highway at Waterfall, and you can't always get there. It's dementia care, and some days the flowers may mean more to you than to them. Send the flowers anyway. In our experience they go to reception with the resident's full name, and the staff take them through. A card as simple as "Thinking of you, Mum. Love always." is plenty. Our thinking of you flowers are made for a visit you can't get to, and so are our flower arrangements, which need no vase. Some of the rooms there are shared, though, and that changes what you pick.

Anna, on a shared room

An Oriental lily fills a shared room whether the other bed wanted it or not. Gerberas have next to no scent. The 3 Gerberas In A Vase fits a small bedside table and arrives in its own water, so nobody has to go looking for a vase.

The notice might say Holy Cross on MacMillan Street, the Church of the Holy Redeemer or the White Lady Funerals chapel in Bulli, and sometimes Helensburgh Cemetery on Cemetery Road afterwards. Funeral flowers go to the service, so give us the venue, the start time, the full name of the person who has died and the funeral director. Sympathy flowers for home go to the family's house, often days later, once it's quiet. "With love, and with you all today." is enough on the card.

I learnt the funeral director bit in 2007, driving a sheath out to the Tweed Valley Cemetery at Eviron, Asha asleep in her capsule in the back. The order said the cemetery and the time, nothing else. It's a big place. I found the family by following the cars with their headlights on. Helensburgh's cemetery is smaller, but it's still laid out in its old church sections, so with the funeral director's name in the notes, the florist can ring and ask exactly where the family will be.

Anna's call: if the flowers go on to the graveside, send a sheath. It lies flat on the grass and stays put on a hill, and a tall vase tips in the first gust. A good one has woody greens around the edge, which take the wind so the lilies in the middle don't.

A thank you to the neighbour who fed the dog, a new job, a sorry. Plenty of what we send fits no heading. Anna has a view on this one.

Go for the Beautiful Pastels Bunch. Soft colours don't commit to an occasion, so the card decides what it means. For more colour, the mixed flowers are the next place to look.