Flower Delivery Lewisham NSW Today, Birthday or Bedside

It's a friend's birthday and you're sending from the other side of town. You can't ring ahead to see if they're in, so put their mobile in the notes. Some older blocks have buzzers that no longer work, and in our experience the mobile is what gets a bunch upstairs. Choose from our birthday flowers for a friend, or a hand-tied flower bunch.

A properly tied bunch stands up in any jar the moment you set it down, because the stems cross at one point and splay out below it. A jar from the kitchen does the job of a vase.

You're sending to someone you can't visit as often as you'd like. Put the resident's full name and room number in the notes, and say so if it's the memory support wing at Catholic Healthcare Lewisham. From what we have seen, reception takes it from there. For a patient at RPA in Camperdown, it's the ward and bed instead. A thinking of you bunch and an 80th birthday need the same details.

In 2008 I carried oriental lilies into a shared room at Murwillumbah Hospital. The nurse looked at the lilies, then at the patient in the next bed, then at me. I went back to the van and swapped them for a bunch of daisies.

Anna, on shared rooms

Keep it small and low in scent. If the room is shared, there's one bedside table and a second bed whose owner didn't ask for lilies. Familiar stems like roses and daisies sit better than anything exotic, and an arrangement set in wet foam carries its own water, which matters when the staff are stretched and nobody has time to change a vase. If you visit, top the foam up every couple of days.

Someone has died, and you have a church, a time and a list of jobs. For St Thomas Becket's on Thomas Street, or the Latin Mass parish behind it, put the service time in the notes, because flowers are usually wanted at the church before the family arrives. If the flowers are going to a graveside at Rookwood instead, say so, with the burial time. A card line such as "With deepest sympathy to you and your family" is enough.

Anna's call: in my experience, white lilies with white or soft pink roses are what most Catholic families expect at a funeral expects. The White Lily & Rose Sheath lies flat on a casket, where a vase would tip.

Some orders don't fit a category: a thank-you to a neighbour, a hello to someone you miss. You don't need an occasion to send flowers.

Anna has a view on this. Lilac with lime green is the pairing I trust when nobody is sure of the occasion. It isn't funereal and it isn't romantic, and the lime keeps the lilac looking fresh. That's the Lovely Lilac & Lime Bunch in our purple flowers.