The weather compounds it. This is the Shenandoah Valley in February, when Interstate 81 through the middle of the city can go from clear to closed on freight-truck ice in an afternoon, US-33 over Swift Run Gap toward Charlottesville is the first road in the region to become a bad idea, and the county lanes out toward Broadway, Timberville and Fulks Run stay slick long after the city streets have been treated. That is not a disclaimer, it is a routing fact that should shape your order. A delivery inside the city - Old Town, Park View, Preston Heights, the streets off Stone Spring Road and Reservoir Street - is a fifteen-minute run from either city bench and survives most weather. A delivery to Grottoes, Elkton or McGaheysville on an icy fourteenth is a different proposition, and Flowers Byroseva at 303 Park Ave in Grottoes exists partly to solve exactly that, since it is already on the southeastern side rather than driving out and back. If a storm is forecast, move the delivery a day earlier rather than gambling. Nobody has ever been upset that flowers came on the thirteenth.
Now the mechanics of a surprise, which in a university town are most of the work. If the recipient lives in a JMU residence hall, know before you order that no florist reaches a room: Interstate 81 splits the campus, the halls sit on both sides of the pedestrian bridge, and the delivery ends at a front desk or as a phone call asking someone to come down. That is fine, but it needs the hall name, the recipient's name as the university registers it, and a mobile number - and if the surprise matters, put a friend's or roommate's number on the order instead so the recipient is not the one told to come collect a mystery. Off campus the apartment communities along Port Republic Road, Devon Lane, Reservoir Street and South Main are numbered by building letter and unit, and the leasing office signing for it during the day is frequently the cleanest route. For a house, the surprise usually hinges on nothing more complicated than a shaded covered spot and a phone number. And say on the order that it is a surprise: the shops here will not announce what they are carrying on a doorstep.