— Melbourne, 12 July 2026
A year of anonymised flower-card messages suggests Australians are far more willing to name grief — and love — than we give ourselves credit for.
Australians are often said to struggle with difficult emotions. But given a small blank card and someone they care about, very few leave it empty.
Australian florist Fig & Bloom reviewed a full year of the messages sent with its flowers, read in aggregate and stripped of names. The findings offer an unusually intimate look at what Australians write when celebration, loss or love makes ordinary conversation hard.
The single most-written line of the year was not "happy birthday." It was "thinking of you," appearing on more than one in seven cards.
What a year of flower cards revealed (to June 2026)
- 93% of orders carried a written message. Given the option to skip it, only about one in fourteen left the card blank.
- The average message ran to about 29 words — two or three sentences. The longest passed 400.
- Birthdays were the most common occasion (26%) — but comfort sat close behind. Sympathy accounted for 16%, with a further 7% offering support to someone having a hard time.
- "Thinking of you" was the most-written phrase of the year. "Happy birthday" and "love you" ran almost exactly level behind it.
- Australians wrote "love you" about twice as often as "sorry" — though both appeared often. Nearly one in five messages said love in some form; about one in ten was an apology.
- A third of messages ended in a row of kisses ("xx" the clear favourite). Only about 6% used an emoji — and when they did, it was almost always a heart.
Why it matters
Celebration and comfort turn up almost back to back. "I don't have the words," it turns out, is often the message itself, and the flowers finish the sentence. Apologies filled roughly one in ten cards, from the genuinely contrite to the gently self-aware ("sorry for being such a flop this year"). And despite being written at an online checkout, the messages kept the conventions of a handwritten note: personal, often slightly awkward, rarely polished. That appears to be the point of them.
From the founder
"We didn't go looking for anything in particular; we just read a year of messages in aggregate. What stayed with us is how honest people are in that little box. The flowers are the easy part; the line underneath is the real gift, and it's almost always braver than we expect."
— Kellie Brown, co-founder, Fig & Bloom
On method
The findings are based on a full year of Fig & Bloom card messages to June 2026, read in aggregate and stripped of names. Occasion was inferred from message language. Every example has been anonymised and identifying detail removed. No personally identifying customer information appears in the published findings.
A few of the messages (anonymised)
"I miss you." (that was the whole message)
"I'm so sorry I haven't been there for you the way you've been there for me. It's not because I don't care, quite the opposite."
"Thinking of you today, Mum, the day he touched earth and heaven. He is never forgotten."
The full findings
The complete breakdown by occasion, the year's most-used words mapped, and more of the messages are published here:
https://figandbloom.com/blogs/news/what-australians-write-on-a-flower-card
Suggested credit line: Source: Fig & Bloom — "What Australians really write on a flower card" (linked to the URL above).
Imagery
Studio flat-lays, doorstep delivery imagery and the message-vocabulary graphic are available on request.
About us:
About Fig & Bloom Fig & Bloom is a design-led Australian florist known for contemporary, considered arrangements, delivering across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Each arrangement is photographed before it leaves the studio — including the gold-foiled message card — so customers see exactly what arrived. figandbloom.com
