Flower Delivery Merewether, Today to Home or St Augustine's

It might be Mum's 80th (eighty, and still insisting she doesn't want a fuss), or a mate turning forty. For a house, put the recipient's mobile in the notes so the florist can ring if nobody's home. For Carpenter Court on John Parade, add the room number; in our experience reception takes the flowers through to the resident. Start with our birthday flowers, or the 80th birthday flowers if it's Mum's big one.

The Florists Choice Birthday Arrangement sits in wet foam, so nobody has to find a vase. Top the foam up with water every couple of days. Foam dries from the top down, and the tallest stems are the first to wilt.

Someone's had surgery at Lingard Private Hospital. Send the flowers with the patient's full name and ward, and in our experience the front desk takes them up from there. If the patient is still in recovery or intensive care, hold off until they're settled in a room. Stays can be short, mind. John Flynn at Tugun is a private surgical hospital a lot like Lingard, and in 2008 I carried a get-well arrangement in there for a man who'd gone home to Terranora that morning. So I drove it out to Terranora, and he opened the door on crutches looking caught out (I felt terrible, he felt worse). Check with the family first, then pick from our get well flowers or hospital flowers.

Card idea: “Rest up. The coffee's on us when you're home.”

Anna's pick: the Australian Native Arrangement. It's set in foam inside its own cube, so there's no vase for the ward to find, and natives barely smell, which counts in a shared room.

You have the notice and maybe a day or two. For a service at St Augustine's Anglican or St Joseph's on Kenrick Street, put the church, the funeral director and the start time in the notes, and order the day before a morning service. Our funeral flowers, wreaths and sheaths go to the service; sympathy flowers for the home can come later in the week, when the visitors thin out and the house goes quiet. Flowers feel small next to all of it, and the family still notices who sent them.

Card idea: “With love, and thinking of you all.”

Anna has a view on the format.

A sheath lies flat on the coffin with no foam and no vase, so nothing tips or leaks during the service. The Pink Rose Sheath is one variety only, and one variety reads calm from the back pew.

Some orders are harder to name: a thank-you for the neighbour who fed the cat, a new job, flowers just because.

Anna, on one bunch that suits nearly any house

For a house, the Beautiful Pastels Bunch. It arrives in its own short glass, so there's nothing to do but set it down. Its oriental lily bud opens around day three or four, just as the gerberas tire, so it's still changing after the card's been read.