Same Day Flower Delivery Mooroobool

The birthday is today and you're a long way off. For a house, put a mobile in the notes in case nobody's home. For Bupa Cairns, in our experience reception takes the flowers through to the room.

Siobhan and I did our own deliveries until about 2009, plenty of them into retirement villages. At Noble Lakeside Park in Kingscliff in 2008 I had lilies in one hand, pollen down my shirt and Asha, nine months old, protesting from the car. Half the lounge came to the glass. I drove home looking like the intern. Every delivery into care has an audience.

At home, the Florists Choice Birthday Bunch goes straight into a vase; cut a couple of centimetres off the stems on an angle before it does. For an 80th or a 90th in an air-conditioned room, carnations and chrysanthemums last well over a week, and roses about a week if the vase sits away from the vent.

Someone went out of their way: got your kid through Year 4, or looked after Mum all year. For a teacher at Balaclava State School, the flowers tend to go to the school office on Mulgrave Road, so put the class in the notes. For the carers at Bupa Cairns, address it to the staff of the wing; the Bright Arrangement With Chocolates works there, because the chocolates get shared round.

Anna, on flowers for a desk or a staff room

An arrangement comes in its own container, so nobody at a desk or on shift goes hunting for a vase. Keep it away from the air-con vent: dry air pulls water out of soft petals faster than heat does.

Someone has died and you want the family to know you're thinking of them. For the service, a White Funeral Wreath or a sheath usually goes through the funeral director, with the service time in the notes. For the family, send sympathy flowers to the house, a day or two after if the first days are hectic. If the family is Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, as about one in eight Mooroobool residents are (2021 Census), ask them what they'd like. A card that works: "We're so sorry. Here whenever you need us."

From the bench: the Australian Native Arrangement suits a warm lounge room full of visitors. Natives like leucadendron hold about ten days at 28 degrees, and a protea's leaves blacken while the head stays put. That's normal.

Plenty of orders don't fit a heading: a new job, a rough week, a card you forgot to post. Anna has a view on this one.

A mixed bunch spreads the bet. The Rose, Gerbera & Lilies Bunch usually opens in stages, gerberas first and lilies last, so Friday's vase looks different from Monday's. As each lily opens, pinch off the anthers, the orange pollen tips, before they dust the petals.