Order Same Day Flowers to Wickham, Right to the Unit

The birthday's today, and the address has a slash in it or a level number. For a unit, the number, the buzzer name and their mobile go in the notes. For a desk on Throsby Street, the business and the level. More Wickham residents work in Defence than in any other industry (2021 Census), so if that's your person, send it to their home. In our experience, flowers just sit and wait at a base gate.

The buzzer-name rule comes from 2007, a hundred metres up Marine Parade from our own shop in Kingscliff. Birthday bunch, unit 6. The block had a 6 and a 6A, no names on either button, and I picked the wrong one. The man in 6A read the card and handed the flowers back. I'd walked past that building every day since we opened the doors. With so many of Wickham's homes being units, a name in the notes saves the florist making my mistake.

Start with our birthday flowers for a friend, or the birthday flowers for him if it's a bloke.

Roses travel with two or three guard petals, the slightly battered outer ones, and that's their job: they take the knocks of the van and the stairwell. Pull them off once the bunch is in water and the bloom underneath is untouched.

There's a photo in the group chat and you're nowhere near the hospital. Ward or home? Wickham's median age is 32 (2021 Census), so new babies come with the territory. If mum's at John Hunter Hospital, her full name and the ward go in the notes. If the baby's in the special care nursery, send to the house, because in our experience the nursery takes no flowers. Home works best a couple of days after mum and the baby are back. For the card, "Welcome to the world, little one" says it. There's more in our new baby flowers.

Anna's call: nothing scented, nothing that sheds and nothing that needs fussing over, because new parents aren't changing vase water. The Blissful Botanics Arrangement covers all three: white roses, green spider chrysanthemums and lisianthus with next to no scent, set in foam in its own silver cube, so the only job is a splash of water into the foam every couple of days.

A funeral notice, a time, and you can't be there. First decide: the service or the house. For the service, the director's name, the venue and the start time go in the notes: a Requiem at Sacred Heart Cathedral on Hunter Street, a chapel service at White Lady Funerals on Maitland Road, Mayfield, or a graveside at Sandgate Cemetery. For a morning service, pick the day before as the delivery date. For the house, send a few days later, once the visitors thin out. On the card, "So sorry. Thinking of you all." is plenty.

Flowers won't change the week the family is having. The ones sent to the house will still be on the kitchen bench after everyone else has gone home. Our sympathy flowers for a funeral are made for the service, and our sympathy flowers for home for afterwards.

Anna, on white for the house afterwards

White shows every bruise by about day four, because there's no colour to hide a brown edge. Keep a white bunch like the Gorgeous Whites Bunch in a cool room out of the afternoon sun, change the water every second day, and it stays clean longest.

Some orders aren't a birthday, a baby or a funeral: a mate's new job, the neighbour who fed the cat, or someone you just felt like sending something to. If your person is in Calvary Mater on Edith Street, Waratah, add their full name and ward, and check with the family first if it's a cancer ward, because in our experience some of those don't take fresh flowers. On the card, "Thinking of you" covers almost anything, and "Back on your feet soon" suits a broken leg better than a long stay. Our get well flowers and thank-you flowers cover most of the rest.

Anna, on the order with no brief

Send the Florist's Choice Bunch. With no theme to match, the florist can build from whichever stems are at their peak that morning, to the size you chose. No brief is the easiest brief there is. If it's going to a ward, though, write "low scent" in the notes, because that's the one line of brief worth giving.