Flowers Delivered to Mulgoa, Up the Long Driveways

What the Catholic Half of Mulgoa Orders, and Why the Stems Are Different

Anna, qualified florist | fifteen years on the bench, most of it in white

Two flowers go out to Mulgoa more than anywhere else I worked, and both are white. The first is the oriental lily. It opens off the bud in sequence, so an arrangement cut a little tight on the Tuesday is still opening on the Friday, which is what you want for a service you cannot pin to the hour. The second is the chrysanthemum, and this is where people get it wrong. A disbud chrys is the toughest cut flower in the cool room, ten to fourteen days even when the room runs warm, and for an Italian or Maltese Catholic funeral it is the correct flower, not a filler.

The catch is that the same chrysanthemum is the one flower you do not send that family for a birthday. In that tradition it belongs to the cemetery and to All Souls in November, so it reads as a death flower at a front door. From the bench, that means one question does most of the work: is this for the church, the funeral home, or the family home. White lilies and generous church work for the service; something with colour and no chrysanths for the home.

The whites earn their place a second way. The heat out here is dry heat, and dry air pulls water out of a soft petal faster than the coast ever does. Lily, chrysanthemum and carnation all keep a firmer petal that takes the dry run up to Mulgoa; hydrangea does not, and I would not put one on a Mulgoa doorstep in January and expect it to see the afternoon out. The carnation has a second trick worth knowing: three weeks in a cool room, three days beside a fruit bowl. Keep it off the kitchen bench.

From the Sydney Market to a Mulgoa Driveway

There is no shed on Mulgoa Road sending these out. The order goes to a partner florist in or close to Penrith, built the morning it is delivered. That is the whole point of the network.

* What happens to your order once it lands in the Lily's Florist network, from click to doorstep.

Mulgoa is closer to real growing country than most of Sydney gives it credit for. Some of the gerberas and carnations in a valley arrangement come out of glasshouses at Horsley Park, about twenty minutes up the road, and are on the market floor within hours of being cut. There is no interstate freight leg to survive, which is half the reason the flowers turn up firmer than a lot of buyers expect this far out.

The deal with the partner is the same one we have run since 2009: they add a few stems to cover a commission we agree up front, and every order off this page goes to them. No wholesaler skims the middle, no auction picks the cheapest bidder. And there is no shopfront on Mulgoa Road, because there never was one.

After You Order

Once you have ordered, the job moves quickly. We confirm it and match it to a partner florist near Penrith. Whatever gate or safe-place note you left goes across with the order, because out here that note is the difference between a delivery and a driver on the phone at a locked gate. If it is in by 2pm on a weekday or 10am on a Saturday, it is built and out the same day.

If something looks off when it lands, ring us the same day on 1300 360 469, seven to six on weekdays. Email works too at [email protected]. We would rather hear about it while the florist can still fix it than read it in a review three days later.

Siobhan, on the order we most want to get right

The call I take a breath before is the sympathy one, where someone interstate is sending flowers to a Catholic funeral for family they have lost and cannot get to. The hardest deliveries out here are the unattended acreages on a hot afternoon, so a mobile number for the recipient matters more than anything else you can give us. Get us that and the parish, and we can carry the rest. That part we can hold for you.

Phone is faster than email if it is urgent. It is still Siobhan and me on the phones, most days sorted around the dinner table or on the drive to netball, so when you ring you get one of the two people who can actually change the order. Not a call centre.

ABN: 17 830 858 659