Flower Delivery Leongatha Today, Farm Addresses Included

The notice has gone out, the service is in Leongatha, and you won't make it. Flowers are a small thing next to being there, and they're still worth sending.

Sort where they're going first. For the service, check the notice for the date and time, then put the funeral director (Handley Funeral Services on Anderson Street, for example) or the church in the notes, with the name of the person who has died. The florist works to the service time. For the graveside at Leongatha Cemetery on McCartin Street, say so in the notes. Start with our funeral flowers. For the family, in our experience flowers to the house a few days later, once the crowd has thinned, are often the ones they notice. A card could read: "Thinking of you all. Wish I was there."

Anna on the graveside: on grass, a tall vase tips in the first gust. Wreaths and sheaths lie flat and stay put.

New baby, and you're nowhere near the hospital on Koonwarra Road. Send early rather than late, because mum may already be home by the time you've decided.

For the ward, put her full name and "maternity" in the notes, and choose something without lilies from our hospital flowers. If she's home, send new baby flowers to the house instead. I learned the lily lesson in 2007, carrying a big bunch of stargazers into the maternity ward at Tweed Hospital. The midwife looked at the lilies, then at me, and pointed me back to the lift. A card could read: "Welcome, little one. Can't wait for a cuddle."

If the flowers come in a box, the water sits in the foam, so nobody on the ward has to find a vase. Once mum is home and things settle, a cup of water into the foam every couple of days keeps the arrangement going.

It's a ninetieth, and the drive down isn't happening this time. Woorayl Lodge on McCartin Street, or a house in town?

For the lodge, add the resident's name and room, because care homes tend to take flowers at the front desk and walk them through. For a house, add a mobile in case they're slow to the door. Have a look at our 90th birthday flowers and 80th birthday flowers. A card could read: "Ninety looks good on you, Nan."

Anna on the bedside table

Care-room tables are small. A compact arrangement in its own vase stays on the table, and a huge bunch ends up on the floor.

Sometimes there's no occasion, you don't know their taste, or the address is a farm with a long driveway and nobody at the house till milking's done.

Anna has a view on this one: Australian natives. Banksia, protea and leucadendron are woody and tough, so a bunch waiting a few hours on a farmhouse verandah barely notices. Once the softer stems finish, the banksia cones dry in the vase and sit on a shelf for months. Split the woody stem ends a few centimetres so they can drink.

There's a good spread to choose from in our native flowers.