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New Year compositions in Sydney: noble fir for a Christmas in summer
New Year compositions in Sydney arrive at the start of summer, when the city's own Christmas plant, the NSW Christmas bush, is turning red in the weeks before 25 December. The bush itself isn't in the range, so the red in these pieces comes from berries and red branch trees made of noble fir instead. From there the choice is mostly about where the piece is going: into someone's hands, onto a table, or into an office.
Red without the Christmas bush: what goes into the fir instead
Sydney has its own Christmas colour before any florist gets involved. Ceratopetalum gummiferum, the NSW Christmas bush, turns a deep red in the weeks running up to 25 December, and the waratah is another local red; neither one is part of the New Year compositions sold here. The red in this range comes from the fir itself: noble fir trimmed with red berries, a red branch tree such as the Red Christmas Tree, and a wreath woven from the same branches. Noble fir's branches are stiff, which is why it is a common choice for wreaths. Christmas here falls in the heat of early summer, and what that heat does to a fir indoors is covered on the flowers in Sydney page.
A gift for the host should be easy to hand over at the door. Among the New Year bouquets, a noble fir bouquet is handed over like any cut bouquet; fir in a soft flower bag comes with its stems already wrapped, and fir in a gold box arrives ready to set down as it is. A basket is the format for a host who wants fresh flowers standing alongside the fir rather than fir alone.
Delivery of New Year compositions in Sydney works the same way across the three formats: the courier hands the piece over in person, card included, and a photo of the finished piece goes out before the courier leaves. Most orders are handed over on the day they're placed, and the exact timing for a given piece shows on its own page; how delivery works sets out the rest.
Low on the table, tall in the corner: centrepieces and branch trees
A tabletop arrangement sits low by design, so it never blocks a face across the table during the holiday week. A branch tree stands taller and asks for a corner of the room instead, the way an ordinary tree would. Both last longer away from direct sun and heaters. Where a piece is built in soaked floral foam, as its own page will say, watering the whole surface of that foam daily keeps it drinking.
Red winterberry, ilex, turns up in some of these arrangements for its colour, and its berries are poisonous if swallowed. In a house with small children or pets, the safer move is to stand the arrangement higher than small hands can reach, rather than leave it on a low table.
Thanking a team in a Sydney tower: New Year corporate gifts
An office gift for the New Year has to clear reception before it reaches a desk, whether that desk sits in a tower off Martin Place or Barangaroo in the CBD, or across the bridge in North Sydney.
Among the corporate gifts for the New Year, a bento cake is a palm-sized cake in its own box with a short message piped on the icing, small enough for one desk and easy to share from there. It isn't meant to sit out: in Sydney's summer heat it is best shared soon after it arrives, not left on a desk through the afternoon.
Ordering for a company means an invoice made out to the business rather than a person, with supporting paperwork available on request. A company ordering regularly can sign a contract. An office order goes through reception under the building's rules; more on that on the flowers in Sydney page.
Choosing among the options here starts with the address. Something to carry to a host sits among the New Year baskets, when flowers should travel alongside the fir. A low piece for the dinner table belongs among the tabletop arrangements, and anything meant for one person rather than a room is easiest to find among the New Year gifts.