Send flowers to Cairns and the northern beaches

Cairns is where Australian flowers go tropical. The city sits between the Coral Sea and the rainforest hills, 16 degrees south of the equator, with a wet season that drops close to 2,000 mm of rain a year and a dry season of blue skies from June to October. Florists here work with heliconias, gingers, orchids and anthuriums that would cost a fortune in Melbourne, alongside roses flown up from the south. Around 153,000 people live in the urban area, from the apartment towers on the Esplanade to the beach suburbs north of the airport and the family estates out to Edmonton and Gordonvale. Order with us and a florist in Cairns arranges and delivers by hand.

No daylight saving: the Cairns cut-off explained

Same-day delivery runs Monday to Saturday. Place the order before 2pm on a weekday or before 10am on a Saturday, Cairns time, and it goes out that day; later orders are delivered the next working day or on the date you choose. There is no Sunday delivery. The trap is the clock. Queensland does not observe daylight saving, so from the first Sunday in October to the first Sunday in April Cairns is an hour behind Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Hobart. Ordering from Perth, Cairns is two hours ahead of you all year round, so be done by noon your time. If in doubt, order before 1pm on your own clock, wherever you are.

From the Esplanade to Palm Cove: where we deliver

The city run covers Cairns City and Cairns North along the Esplanade, Parramatta Park, Manunda, Manoora, Westcourt, Bungalow and Portsmith, and the older hill suburbs of Edge Hill, Whitfield and Aeroglen beside the airport. Mooroobool, Earlville, Kanimbla and Bayview Heights are covered, and so is the southern corridor of Woree, Mount Sheridan, White Rock, Bentley Park and Edmonton down to Gordonvale. North of the Barron River the run takes in Stratford, Freshwater, Redlynch, Brinsmead, Kamerunga, Caravonica and Smithfield around the James Cook University campus on McGregor Road, then the northern beaches: Machans Beach, Holloways Beach, Yorkeys Knob, Trinity Park, Trinity Beach, Kewarra Beach, Clifton Beach and Palm Cove. The beaches and Gordonvale go out later in the day than the city. Many Cairns homes have gated driveways and many visitors stay in resorts, so give a unit or room number, the resort name and a mobile number; a Palm Cove resort will hold the flowers at reception, and the driver cannot go past it.

Tropical stems: heliconias, gingers and orchids

Cairns has a tropical monsoon climate: the wet season runs from November to May, with January the wettest month and the cyclone season running alongside it, and mean daily highs stay between 26 degrees in July and 32 in January. Cut flowers that suffer below 13 degrees thrive here, and the wet season is when the heliconias, torch gingers, curcumas and anthuriums are at their best. The Flecker Botanic Gardens, Australia's only wet tropics botanical garden, is the best place to see what grows locally. Orchids, including the Cooktown orchid that is Queensland's floral emblem, are available most of the year. The dry season from June to October is cooler and less humid, so that is when roses, lilies and southern seasonal stems hold up longest in a Cairns house. In the wet, choose tropical stems or ask the florist to arrange in a vase with water, and keep the flowers out of the sun.

Flowers to Cairns Hospital and Cairns Private

Cairns Hospital, the largest hospital in Far North Queensland with 531 beds, is at 165 The Esplanade in Cairns North; older locals still call it Cairns Base Hospital, its name until 2013, and the florist will know either. Cairns Private Hospital is at 1 Upward Street in Parramatta Park. Ring the ward before you order: intensive care and some wards take no fresh flowers, and oncology often asks for arrangements without pollen. Give the patient's full name and the ward, because a bouquet addressed only to the hospital stays at the front desk. In the Cairns heat, a compact arrangement in its own water lasts better on a bedside locker than a loose bouquet waiting for a vase.

Cairns Show, Cairns Festival and the flower days of the year

The Cairns Show runs at the showgrounds in Parramatta Park from Wednesday 15 to Friday 17 July 2026, and the Cairns Festival takes over the Esplanade for ten days from 28 August to 6 September 2026. Father's Day, Sunday 5 September 2027, is delivered on the Saturday because there is no Sunday delivery, and the same applies to Mother's Day on Sunday 9 May 2027, when flowers go out on Saturday 8 May with a 10am cut-off. Mother's Day in Cairns falls in the last stretch of the wet, so tropical arrangements travel better than soft southern blooms. Valentine's Day, 14 February, is peak humidity: have roses delivered to an air-conditioned office or a home where someone is in. Anzac Day, 25 April, is marked with dawn services across the city; the custom is rosemary and wreaths, not bouquets.

Sympathy flowers: Martyn Street, Forest View and the crematorium

Cairns Regional Council runs two cemeteries: Martyn Street Cemetery at the corner of Martyn and Anderson Streets in Manunda, the historic ground close to the city, and Forest View Cemetery at the corner of Hardy and Foster Roads in Mount Sheridan. Cairns Crematorium Funeral Home and Memorial Gardens is next door at 79-85 Foster Road, Mount Sheridan, where most cremation services in the region are held. Funeral tributes should be ordered two to three days ahead and addressed to the chapel with the family name and the service time. Delivery to the service itself is never guaranteed, so give the family's home as a second address.

Roses in the tropics, and what a bouquet costs

Roses are still the most-ordered flower to Cairns, with tropical bunches a close second and native stems in the dry season. Hand-tied bouquets start at around AUD 75; a dozen roses, a tall tropical arrangement or a vase design costs more. The delivery fee is calculated for the suburb and added at checkout, and a card with your message is included with every order.

Did you know? Cairns Hospital on the Esplanade opened in 1878 and was known as Cairns Base Hospital from 1932 until 2013.