The winner: Viburnum, 100/100. Tied for second at 94: Coreopsis, Daylily. Lowest upkeep of the qualifiers: Daylily at 94.
Every flower here is scored by the same 5 published rules, using one open table of 85 flowers. No taste, no sponsors: tap any score and it unfolds into the lines that made it.
The picks
The flowers that won
The top score, plus the qualifier that asks least of you.
Deep-cold reach: 3 to 9 · Bloom in a short season: 5 months · Set-and-forget upkeep: low
Flaws, not dealbreakers:no vase data in the postharvest literature
Deer: rarely damaged (Rutgers A)
90/ 100tap for the breakdown
Deep-cold reach34 / 403 to 9
Bloom in a short season20 / 205 months
Set-and-forget upkeep15 / 15low
Toughness tags11 / 154 documented
Zone spread10 / 103 to 9
The protocol
How the score is built
5 rules, 100 points, no opinions. Every line reads one field of the table.
Deep-cold reach40 pointshardy to zone 2 scores 40; zone 3 34; zone 4 26 Read from: the zones it survives.
Bloom in a short season20 pointsa zone 3 summer is short: every documented month counts Read from: the months it is in bloom.
Set-and-forget upkeep15 pointsRead straight from how much upkeep extension guides report.
Toughness tags15 pointsRead straight from stress tolerances.
Zone spread10 pointsa wide range serves the reader who moves or gifts plants Read from: the zones it survives.
Not ranked here: an annual: dies at frost by design, hardiness is moot; not hardy below zone 5: will not survive a zone 3-4 winter. Scores are never sponsored
and never sold. The full method ↗
The leaderboard
The top ten
The 10 highest of 34 that qualified. Tap any score to open the lines behind it.
Not qualifying is a verdict too: the table simply says this job is not theirs.
not hardy below zone 5Hydrangea macrophylla, Dahlia, Carnation and 33 more
an annualSunflower, Marigolds, Zinnias and 12 more
The winner's badge
Generated by the ranking above, and re-scored whenever the table changes.
Viburnum
The badge is generated by this ranking, not awarded by hand. When the
table changes, it re-scores itself.
How we rank
We keep one table of 85 flowers,
with 25 documented facts each, drawn from university and extension sources. Every ranking is
a published formula worth 100 points; tap any score and it unfolds into the lines that made
it. A flower that does not fit a job is not scored lower: it is excluded, and the reason is
named. Nothing here is sponsored, and no score can be bought. When the table changes, every
score and stamp updates itself.
The full method ↗
