The bulb in a box against the foil-wrapped pot. Only one of them is built to do it again next December.
Shot to one scale: bloom beside bloom, from our own library.
The verdicts, line by line
Every line below is a field of the open table, not an opinion.
In the vase
Only amaryllis carries published vase trials (6 to 14 days); for poinsettia no postharvest record exists, and we do not guess.
In the garden
Both come back, but not everywhere: amaryllis shrugs off zone 7 winters while poinsettia taps out below zone 9. On upkeep the table sides with amaryllis: rated medium maintenance against high.
The full card
A line is marked only where one flower clearly leads. Equal or too-close values are left plain.
| Field | Amaryllis | Poinsettia |
|---|---|---|
| Vase life, days | 6 to 14 | no trials published |
| Wholesale, per stem | $1.10 to $1.30 | no price on record |
| Light | Full sun to part shade | Outdoors: partial sun to partial shade (2-6 hours direct sun, NC State). Indoors as a holiday plant: extension care guides instead advise bright, indirect light near a sunny window. |
| Water | Medium | Medium; let the soil surface dry before watering thoroughly, then discard excess drainage water |
| Hardiness zones | 7 to 10 | 9 to 11 |
| Bloom months | 3 months | 3 months |
| Cats (ASPCA) | Toxic | Toxic |
| Out of water | Poor | not recorded |
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 the question is not scored lower: it is excluded, and the reason is shown. When the table changes, every score and stamp updates itself. The full method ↗
Read the full profile
Everything the table holds on each of them, in plain prose.
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