Flower Delivery The Hill: Same Day

The Hill and the Hunter Connection

Andrew's family has roots in the Hunter. His grandfather was born in Maitland, worked as an engineer in the mines, came up through the pits. Also happened to be a champion tennis player, which our kids still find baffling. How does someone go from underground in work boots to championship tennis in whites? Different era. Men just did things.

We took Asha and Ivy down to the Hunter last year on a roots trip. Drove around East Maitland trying to find where Grandad grew up. Never found the actual house. The streets had changed, the old references didn't match. But we found The Orange Tree café and it became our go to. Good coffee, easy with teenagers, the kind of place you end up at three times in four days.

Newcastle was the gateway to all of that. The Hill, Maitland, Cessnock. All connected through the Hunter. When we started building our florist network back in 2009, Newcastle was one of the first areas we expanded into. It made sense. We knew the region. We had family history here.

What Anna Says About Flowers for The Hill

Anna has been with us over 15 years. She's a qualified florist who now works as our bookkeeper, but her expertise still shapes how we think about flowers. When I asked her about sending arrangements to a suburb like The Hill, she got specific in ways that only someone who's spent years in the trade would.

"The Hill has those established homes with proper entrance ways," Anna said. "Not tiny apartment foyers. You can go bigger with arrangements because there's space to display them. But bigger means thinking about structure. Banksias and leucadendrons give you that architectural presence without flopping over within a day. Waratahs are stunning but they're temperamental in warm weather. Roses need to be at the right stage when they leave the shop. Petals should spring back when you press them gently. Too tight and they won't open. Too open and they're already halfway done."

She also mentioned that heritage homes often have steps, verandahs, particular entry points. "Our Newcastle florists know which properties have steep driveways, where to leave flowers if no one's home, how to get a vase arrangement up steps without sloshing water everywhere. That local knowledge matters."

This is the kind of detail you don't get from a warehouse operation. You get it from florists who've delivered to The Hill for years.

Real Customer Feedback

We've partnered with Feefo since 2013. They're an independent review platform endorsed by Google. Only verified customers who've actually purchased can leave reviews. We can't edit them, can't delete them, can't get mates to write nice things. Over 23,000 reviews since we started.

* Our Feefo Trusted Service Award for 2024 and 2025. Over 23,000 verified reviews since 2013. We can't edit them, can't delete them.

One customer wrote: "The flowers and the arrangement were very beautiful. They put a huge smile on my sister's face."

Anna's take on feedback like this: "That's what we're actually selling. Not stems and petals. The reaction. The smile. When a florist gets the colours right, the size right, the presentation right, that moment of someone opening the door and their face changing? That's the job done properly."

Another customer said: "Ordered at just past 2pm, delivered by 3:30pm same day... outstanding!"

Same day delivery means same day. Not tomorrow morning, not we'll try our best. Our Newcastle florists have this down because they understand city delivery logistics. Parking in inner Newcastle, navigating one way streets, knowing which buildings have security and which have safe spots for leaving flowers.

A third customer mentioned: "Beautiful bunch of flowers, delivered on time and presented in a lovely glass vase. Mum was thrilled to receive these for her birthday, in particular because she was in hospital."

The Hill is close to John Hunter Hospital and Calvary Mater Newcastle. Hospital flowers are a significant part of what we do in the Newcastle area. Anna always reminds me that hospital arrangements need to be appropriate. "Some wards don't allow flowers at all. Our florists know which ones. And you want arrangements that don't overwhelm a small room or require complicated care from someone who's unwell."

When People Send Flowers to The Hill

Sympathy and Funerals

The Hill has Christ Church Cathedral. Funerals happen there. Families need sympathy flowers for home and sometimes sympathy flowers for a funeral. Different purposes, different arrangements. Home sympathy tends toward warm, comforting colours. Funeral arrangements often lean classic white, though that varies by family preference. We let florists advise because they know what works.

Birthday Milestones

Newcastle has generational families. People who've been in The Hill for decades. 70th birthday flowers, 80th birthday flowers, occasions where presentation matters because these celebrations have weight. Cheap supermarket bunches don't cut it for someone's grandmother in The Hill.

Thank You and Thinking of You

Sometimes flowers are just because. A neighbour helped out. A friend's going through something hard. Thank you flowers or thinking of you flowers carry a different tone than celebration flowers. Less bright, more thoughtful. Anna calls it reading the room without being in the room.

How Our Network Actually Works

* How it works. You order with us, we route it to a Newcastle partner florist, they make your flowers fresh that morning and deliver to The Hill.

When you order flowers to The Hill through Lily's Florist, your order routes to one of our partner florists in the Newcastle area. Real florist shops with trained staff, refrigerated storage, wholesale market access. They make your flowers fresh that morning and deliver them locally.

We've been working with Newcastle florists since 2009. Some have been with us over 15 years. That's partnership built on trust and consistency, not franchise fees or corporate contracts.

The model started by accident. We bought a florist shop in Kingscliff in 2006. The previous owner had taken out a Yellow Pages ad we didn't know about. The phone wouldn't stop ringing with flower requests to places we couldn't deliver. Newcastle. Sydney. Melbourne. Random regional towns. For months we said sorry, can't help, until one quiet June day with maybe $25 in the till we thought: what if we found florists in those areas and asked them to help us?

* Our shop at 1/98 Marine Parade, Kingscliff. We bought it in 2006 with zero florist experience. The Yellow Pages ad the previous owner left behind changed everything.

Newcastle was on that first list. The florist we contacted said yes. So did the next one. And the next. No membership fees, no upfront costs. We built them pages on our website, sent them orders, asked them to add a few extra stems to cover our commission. Transparent, simple. That model became Lily's Florist.

You can read the full story on our About Us page. The whole yarn. How we nearly went broke, sold baby bottles to fund the flower network, converted our garage into an office, hired actual florists to give us credibility. Anna was one of those early hires. Still with us.

Feefo Trusted Service Award

In 2024 and 2025, we received Feefo Trusted Service Awards. To qualify, a business needs at least 50 reviews in a year averaging 4 stars or above. We had over 3,000 reviews in that period, more than 2,400 at 4 or 5 stars.

Flowers are subjective. One person sees a bouquet and thinks gorgeous. Another looks at the same arrangement and sees too much greenery. We knew partnering with Feefo was a risk because we couldn't control the feedback. But honest reviews help us improve. They also help you decide whether to trust us before ordering.

Ordering Flowers to The Hill

Online: Browse arrangements, add The Hill delivery address, checkout. Done.

Phone: 1300 360 469. Monday to Friday 7am to 6pm, Saturday 7am to 12:30pm. Australian call centre in Armidale NSW. Real people who know flowers.

Live chat: If you'd rather type than talk.

Same day delivery: Order before 2pm weekdays or 10am Saturdays. We deliver Monday to Saturday. Sundays only on Mother's Day.

Delivery fee: $16.95. We subsidise this because actual delivery costs are often higher.

Your flowers get made in Newcastle by Newcastle florists. Delivered to The Hill by someone who knows the streets, the driveways, the best way to get an arrangement up those cathedral hill slopes without dropping it.

About the Author

Siobhan, Co-founder of Lily's Florist

Siobhan and her partner Andrew have owned and operated Lily's Florist since 2006, when they bought a small florist shop in Kingscliff NSW with zero experience, a baby on the way, and against their accountant's advice. What started as a tiny shop on Marine Parade evolved into an Australia-wide network of 800+ partner florists.

They still live in Kingscliff with their two daughters Asha (18) and Ivy (14). Business decisions get made at the dinner table or on the drive to netball, not in boardrooms. There's no marketing team, no offshore call centre, no team of solicitors. Just a Mum and Dad who've spent nearly two decades learning the flower industry from the ground up.

* Andrew and I with our daughters Asha (18) and Ivy (14). Andrew's grandfather worked the Maitland mines. The Hunter has been part of our family long before we started sending flowers here.

Siobhan handles much of the content and customer communication for Lily's Florist. You can read the full story of how they built the business on the About Us page, or call 1300 360 469 to speak with their Australian team in Armidale.