Flowers are playing a vital role in our household's daily life just now. Groceries about to be delivered to our front step? Leave a bunch of flowers as a thank you, deep purple hellebores and daffodils. Dinner left on a gatepost to be delivered to a friend? Add camellias, pale pink doubles like the most frivolous ballerina skirts. Tomorrow's delivery from the chemist deserves more flowers, and luckily the daffodils are doing their duty but I might add some leucadendrons too.

Flowers make people happy. A rose in a bud vase or old cream jar on my desk makes me happy. A bed of Iceland poppies all waving their heads outside a window is a delight. A waterfall of clematis down the local pittosporum trees is one of the highlights of the bush-flower year, rivalled only by the November rock orchid display, whole cliffs of them where its too steep for feral goats.

Just now I'm waiting for about 800 fruit trees to bloom, and roughly seven million helichrysums along the driveway (it's a long driveway) plus that clematis and the wonga vines with its tubular cream flowers faintly patterned with mauve. The hymenanthera dentata bushes are flowering, too - minute yellow flowers you can easily miss, but that fill the world with the scent of honey.

Do not say "We are in lockdown. I cannot responsibly browse for seedlings now." Almost every garden centre now has an online presence and will have perennials delivered to your door. There are hundreds of family businesses breeding everything from dahlias to heritage apple trees, herbs, kangaroo paws or edible native plants, and they are eager to pack you up whatever you choose to order. Seeds are easily posted and will flower (or turn into vegetables) about the same time as any seedlings you might otherwise have bought and which will be subjected to transplant shock.

Buy now. Plant now! Bung in some penstemons or Federation daisies and you'll have flowers in a month or two. Every garden needs some English lavender plants to dry your underwear on, so they smell fresh and delicious after a day of flowers and sunshine. English lavender grows extremely well in a pot on a sunny patio, too, though if you live in a high-rise you may prefer to drape your smalls on the side of the plant that passers-by can't see.

And of course you have space for more flowers. Fill the gaps in paving with a white froth of alyssum. Stick sunflower seeds wherever you can find bare (sunny) soil. Plant out the space between the tyre tracks in the driveway with low-growing yarrow, scented clove pinks, ever-blooming erigeron or garlic chives, which look specular in flower. Think hanging baskets, pots on the window sill (look for a flowering cactus that will still survive and even bloom when you neglect it) and remember a nude fence is an abomination, and needs to be garmented in something floriferous or edible, or both, like banana passionfruit with its gaudy pink blooms.

Hoik out the grass from any sunny bank and plant helichrysums (everlastings) instead, so you can pick them then let them dry in the vases to enjoy for years as their colour fades to parchment. You can also buy indoor plants via mail order - I've been hunting for an indoor plant gift for a friend. Some florists sell and deliver indoor plants, but so do specialist nurseries and non-specialist ones too.

Even someone with severely brown thumbs can grow an impressive bromeliad in a sunny spot, especially if they sit the pot on a saucer filled with pebbles and water to increase humidity. Lipstick plants need good light too to give their vivid flowers; and anthuriums (flamingo lilies) will give you glorious colour. The more light and the better fed they are, the more flowers you'll get. Make sure soil is well drained and not too wet, and cosset with a high-phosphorous fertiliser every few months. Your online supplier should also be able to advise what high-phosphorus fertilisers they have to offer.

Keep hunting. Keep planting. And give cuttings, even if they must be thrown in a bundle over the fence to be socially distanced. I've just posted a great bunch of salvia cuttings to a friend in Melbourne. This is the perfect time to post cuttings of easy-to-grow Federation daisies, roses, lavender, salvias and hundreds more.

If you have a plenitude of flowers, leave a bucketful outside the front gate with a "please take" sign, as well as a bunch on the front steps for every delivery. Whatever the next few months have in store for us, it can only be made better by a heck of a lot of flowers, and the joy in seeing them grow and bloom, each in their season.