Arrange Rosanna Flowers for a Ward, a Reception or a Front Step

You are on a screen because you cannot get there yourself, and underneath that is the feeling that flowers are a small thing to be sending at a time like this. They are. They are also the thing that says you were thinking about her at eleven on a Tuesday. What decides whether it lands is the ward, and enough of ours have come back that we treat that one line in the notes as the order itself. Get well flowers for a general ward, new baby flowers for the Mercy.

I would send a box before a vase here every time. A hand-tied bunch means somebody on the ward has to find a container, cut the stems and fill it, and that is nobody's job. I have seen them sit in the wrapping most of a day.

Somebody has died and you are choosing flowers for it on a phone, which is a flat, strange job. Start with where it is going: the family home, the church, the funeral director and the graveside are four different orders. Then colour. Forty three per cent of Rosanna ticked no religion at the last census, so for a celebrant service white is not the automatic answer. Ask what she grew. Ask what colour she wore. For a Catholic Mass, a Greek Orthodox service or a Chinese family's funeral, white is exactly the answer and red is the one to keep out. Sympathy flowers to the home inside three days is the usual window. Funeral flowers and wreaths and sheaths want three things: the date, her name and the venue it is going to. On the card, name her and say one specific thing you remember.

Anna on what survives a service

I pick for the room the flowers are going into. A hall under lights for two hours is dry air and heat off the fittings, so I go carnation, lisianthus and chrysanthemum. Hydrangea is the one I would never send to a service. Biggest surface area on the bench, first to give its water up.

One resident in twenty in Rosanna is over eighty-five, more than double the Victorian rate, and there are two homes on the two main roads. A ninetieth says out loud what you have been avoiding about how often you visit. Calvary also runs day respite, so a Tuesday delivery can miss somebody who is home on Tuesdays. One call to reception settles it. Ninetieth birthday flowers for the day, or a gift hamper where a vase would be one more thing for staff. Anna has a view on the hamper.

Skip the arrangement and send something she can eat or hold. Failing that, chrysanthemum. Eighteen to thirty days in a cool room and ethylene-insensitive, so it does not care what is on the bench beside it. Familiar beats impressive here. Roses, daisies, lavender.

Not knowing the ward, the room, or whether there is a vase at the other end is where almost everybody starts.

So build for the worst door. A box arrangement, no lilies, nothing you can smell from the doorway, eighty to a hundred and thirty dollars. That clears any door that takes flowers at all. If you would rather not choose, Florist's Choice hands it to whoever is on the bench that morning.