Subiaco Flowers, Same Day to the Ward or the Front Door

If you're sending to King Edward, the odds are you cannot get there yourself yet, a shift you cannot leave or a drive from Geraldton or Broome you cannot make for days. The flowers go in your place.

The arrangement goes to the main reception, the desk logs it against the mother's admission, and a nurse carries it through on the next round, usually under three hours from order to bedside. The one thing worth checking before a same day order is that she has not been discharged early, since a straightforward birth can be a two day stay and she may already be home.

Skip the lilies here, every time. For a maternity room the safe stems are roses, gerberas, lisianthus and carnations, nothing that sheds pollen or pushes heavy scent into a small warm room. A box arrangement beats a hand tie too, because the ward rarely has a spare vase and a box holds its own water on the bedside table. On the card, a line like "no rush to reply, just rest up" takes the pressure off her to write back.

When someone you love is in for surgery and you are a flight or a long drive away, flowers are the thing you can do from where you are. St John of God on Salvado Road takes patients from right across the state, so a lot of these orders come from people who cannot sit in the room themselves.

From what our florists have seen, visiting tends to run mid afternoon into the evening, so flowers that land in the morning go to reception and ride the next round to the bed, while a late afternoon delivery can miss the window. The hospital keeps its own florist on Level 2 for anyone who is physically there. The order we are here for is the other one, the bedside nobody nearby can reach by hand. Ask the sender for the ward name when you order, because a full patient name plus the ward is what gets it to the right bed. One thing for the card itself: skip a time you plan to visit, since patients get moved between wards or sent home early, and a note that says "see you at three" can read wrong by lunchtime.

Anna on what survives a warm ward

Stay off lilies and anything heavily scented in a shared ward, and stay off soft headed flowers in summer. A carnation gets written off as the cheap option, but set it next to a gerbera and it will still look right on day ten, where a hydrangea can wilt by the next morning if the bed sits under an air conditioning vent. For a hospital I would take the carnation and the chrysanthemum over the showy stem every time. If you want help choosing, our get well range is built around stems that hold.

A birthday is the one you most want landing on the day itself, not the day after. In Subiaco that runs two ways. One is a flat off Rokeby Road with an intercom and nowhere safe to leave anything. The other is a Perth Modern family in November, dressing a Year 12 for the formal.

For an apartment, leave us a safe drop note or a second phone number at checkout, because plenty of buildings here are intercom only and a florist cannot leave flowers in a foyer that locks itself. For a workplace birthday, and a lot of these go to hospital staff, it is a reception drop rather than a desk, so a compact arrangement that fits a nursing station beats a tall one.

Which brings up the formal season, since it lands every November here. The Perth Modern parents who ring already know what they want, a corsage in a set colour to match the dress, a particular stem, a specific wrist fitting, so order a week or two out rather than the day before, because the good florists book up fast. Through summer, ask for something built to hold in the heat. A bright box of gerberas and chrysanthemums will outlast a delicate hand tie in a hot flat by days.

Plenty of orders do not fit a clean occasion. A granddaughter's birthday when you are two generations apart and unsure her taste lines up with yours. A thank you to a consultant after a long stretch of appointments. A flat you have never seen.

This is what Florist's Choice is built for. You tell us the occasion and a rough budget, and the florist builds a Florist's Choice arrangement from the best of what came off the market that morning, rather than you guessing every stem off a screen. I will be straight with you about the trade. At a standard price the florist builds to that budget. A photo can stage more stems than a standard budget pays for, so a set bouquet will not always match its picture exactly. What the Floraco run changes is the quality of the stems in it, cut that morning a suburb away, and on a good market day that counts for more in the vase than two extra blooms in a photo. If you would rather keep it simple, a seasonal bunch does the same job.