The most expensive mistake on a Scottsdale get-well order has nothing to do with flowers. Mayo Clinic runs two separate addresses in this valley, and people mix them up constantly. The Scottsdale campus — the outpatient clinic where most consultations and follow-ups happen — is on East Shea Boulevard in 85259, at the eastern end of Shea below the McDowell Mountains. Mayo Clinic Hospital, where inpatients actually are, is on East Mayo Boulevard in Phoenix 85054, north of the Loop 101 near the Desert Ridge area, roughly ten miles from the Shea building. Flowers sent to the clinic for a patient in the hospital do not get walked over; they sit at a desk in the wrong building. Before you order, ask the family which Mayo they mean, and if they say "Mayo in Scottsdale" ask a second time whether the person is admitted or coming in for an appointment. That one question saves a day more often than anything else on this page.
What clears a floor and what comes back. Lilies are the most common refusal anywhere in this valley: the pollen transfers to a gown or a sheet the instant a sleeve brushes past, a patient in a bed has no way to move away from the smell, and the same plant is toxic to cats, so it causes a second problem in whatever house the arrangement eventually goes home to. Height is the next. An inpatient arrangement lives on a rolling tray table that already carries a water jug, a phone, a call button and a lunch tray, so it has to be short, wide-based and hard to tip when a nurse swings the table sideways — and it should not be glass. Scent is third, and it is enforced hardest where patients cannot leave: the cancer centre on East Shea, the infusion suites at MD Anderson in Gilbert, the neuro floors at Barrow on West Thomas, any intensive care unit. Soil is fourth and least expected — plenty of units accept cut flowers but not a live potted plant, which makes a plant the right gift for the house and the wrong one for the room. Ask for alstroemeria, lisianthus, spray roses, carnations, gerbera, stock or solidago: they hold their shape in a warm room, which in Arizona is not a minor consideration. And if you cannot find out whether the unit takes flowers at all, write that in the notes — the bench will phone the floor before it cuts a stem.