Same Day Flower Delivery Meridan Plains, Ward to Classroom

The text came in with a name, a weight and one blurry photo, and you're nowhere near the Sunshine Coast. If the baby arrived at Sunshine Coast University Hospital, next door in Birtinya, send new baby flowers to the maternity ward under the mother's full name as she was admitted. Home already, or you can't tell? Send to the house.

I learned the name part the hard way in 2008, delivering out of our Kingscliff shop to the maternity ward at John Flynn on Inland Drive, Tugun. Pink bunch, a teddy, a card for Baby Olivia and the dad's surname. Mum had been admitted under her own. Twenty minutes at the maternity desk, the only bloke on the floor holding a teddy, while a midwife rang rooms. We found her. A maternity ward in Birtinya works on the same names as one in Tugun.

Anna's call: nothing that sheds, nothing heavily scented, nothing to look after. Maternity wards tend to keep lilies out because of the pollen near newborns, and a special care nursery usually takes none at all, so if the baby is in special care, send to the house. Soft pinks in a low arrangement that carries its own water suit a hospital windowsill.

For the card: Welcome to the world, little one. Sleep when you can.

Nan's turning seventy and she lives at IRT Woodlands on Lacebark Street. Easy enough, until the order form asks for an address. Woodlands is a retirement village and a care home on the one site, so give the villa number, or her full name and room for the care home. In our experience care-home flowers go to reception and a carer walks them in. There are 70th birthday flowers, and thinking of you flowers for when there's no birthday at all.

Anna, on the vase nobody changes

In a care room nobody tips the vase out every second day. An arrangement set in floral foam carries its own water, but foam water goes stale like any other. If family visit, draw the old water out with a sports bottle and refill it every few days, and the arrangement keeps going well past the birthday.

For the card: Happy 70th, Nan. Save me some cake.

Your kid's teacher got them through the year, and a card from the newsagent doesn't quite cover it. Send to the school while term is on, and to the teacher's house once the holidays start. Meridan State College and Pacific Lutheran College on Woodlands Boulevard are both big Prep to Year 12 schools, so put the teacher's full name and class in the notes; in our experience school flowers wait in the office until someone is free between classes. Thank-you flowers suit most teachers, and for a Year 12 finishing up there are graduation flowers.

A classroom has no spare vase, and a wrapped bunch left on a warm desk spends the afternoon drinking nothing; by the last bell the soft petals are going limp. Send a boxed arrangement. The box is the vase, it needs nothing from anyone all day, and it rides home on the floor of the car without tipping.

Some orders don't fit a category: the neighbour who fed the dog for a fortnight, a friend back at work after a rough month. Anna had a firm view on those.

For a house here in summer, start with a mixed bunch built around chrysanthemums. In my experience they go about ten days even in the heat, often more, with clean water, and people who think they look ordinary have never seen a good florist build with them. Add gerberas for the colour, and change the water, because the gerberas are the ones that notice.