A floral tribute

The inspiring AH14 told me about an online course called A Year with My Camera, run by Emma Davies.  When I looked up the details I discovered that, course aside, Emma specialises in flower photography.  As chance would have it my daughter sent her mum some flowers yesterday for Mothering Sunday, so I thought I would photograph them.
I have no experience of flower photography, but hey, how hard can it be?  How little I knew! Two hours later I produced the mediocre effort you see in my blip.  And my ignorance presented me with so many questions I had no answers to, other than by trial and error.
What about a background - I stood them against a wall.  In doing so I discovered I do not have a wall in my house that has even lighting, at least not without first moving furniture and/or taking pictures down.  So what is an appropriate background? What is the best distance between the flowers and the background? Should I use a small aperture to ensure all the flowers are in focus, or a wide aperture to blur the background, even if it is plain? Is choice of focal length important, to show depth or to flatten the perspective?
What kind of lighting? Window light casts a diffuse shadow.  Is this best, or a clearer shadow, cast by an artificial light source?  Is the shadow best behind the flowers as with frontal lighting, or to one side, or are they best lit from the side with no shadow?  If you use side-lighting is it a good idea to also use a reflector to light the other side?
Should the camera be placed at the same level as the flowers, above, below?  Is it best to put the flower container directly onto a plinth of some sort, or is it better with a drape over the plinth?
What kind of vase/container for the flowers, plain or patterned, contrasting or complementary?  What about the respective colours of the flowers and the background, the container and the background, the container and the base, the background and the base?
And they are just the questions I can now recall, and only relating to one photo of a vase of flowers.  What if I were photographing just one flower, or three, or a growing flower in a pot, or outdoors in a garden or a natural environment?  Many of my unknown unknowns have become known unknowns, and I have developed respect for flower photography specialists.
I know some of you photograph flowers – I have seen them – so any pointers would be really appreciated.