Maryland Flower Delivery, Same Day in NSW 2287

It's their birthday, and you'd like the flowers in their hands, ideally before they head out for dinner. If they work at Maryland Shopping Centre, send the flowers to the shop, with its name and their mobile in the notes. At the house, name a shady spot in case nobody's in.

Anna's call, for a wife's birthday: 3 Wrapped Red Roses. If an outer petal or two looks bruised, those are guard petals that took the knocks in transit. Peel them off and the bloom underneath is untouched.

Someone looked after your mum, or your dad, or you, and a card felt thin. Send the flowers to the ward if they're for the whole team, or to the house if they're for one nurse. If that nurse works nights, say so in the notes and ask for the thank-you flowers to be left at the door without a knock or a call. I learned that in 2008, at a townhouse off Leisure Drive, Banora Point, with a bunch for a nurse from Tweed Hospital. I knocked twice. She came out in her dressing gown, an hour into her sleep, and was lovely about it, which made it worse.

For someone who sleeps through the day, an arrangement is the easier gift. It sits in wet foam, the green block that holds the water, so there's no vase to find at three in the afternoon. Top the foam up every two or three days and the flowers keep drinking.

Someone has died, and you're sorting flowers in between everything else. Funeral flowers need the venue and the start time in the notes: the chapel at Sandgate Cemetery, say, or Pettigrew's on Harris Street in Wallsend. A morning service means ordering the day before. Flowers for the home can follow a few days later. Sending flowers at all feels like too little and like the only thing you can do, both at once. "Holding you all close" is plenty for the card.

Anna, on whites for the home

The Gorgeous Whites Bunch is the one I'd send to the house. Whites sit quietly in a room full of people. They also show every mark, and in a warm, bright room you can see brown edges by about day four. Stand them somewhere cool, out of the sun, and they stay clean a lot longer.

If they're home from John Hunter, get well flowers are the obvious place to start. A new job, a rough week, no reason at all: those don't fit a heading, and for them Anna has a view.

3 Gerberas In A Vase. Gerberas barely notice the fruit bowl, they carry next to no scent, and the vase comes with them. Their hollow stems show cloudy water first, which keeps everyone honest about changing it. Hard to get wrong. There are more cheerful faces like them among the daisies.