Two glossy, architectural blooms for modern arrangements, with very different lifespans.
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
In plain water the gap is not taste, it is arithmetic: anthurium holds 14 to 30 days while calla lily manages 4 to 14. Money settles the rest of the argument: calla lily wholesales around $2.50 to $3.50 a stem against $3.19 to $4.70, noticeably less for the same job. Those are typical trade prices, not a quote: what a florist charges you moves with the season and the region.
In the garden
Both come back, but not everywhere: calla lily shrugs off zone 8 winters while anthurium taps out below zone 11.
The full card
A line is marked only where one flower clearly leads. Equal or too-close values are left plain.
| Field | Anthurium | Calla Lily |
|---|---|---|
| Vase life, days | 14 to 30 | 4 to 14 |
| Wholesale, per stem | $3.19 to $4.70 | $2.50 to $3.50 |
| Fragrance | not recorded | Lightly fragrant |
| Light | Partial shade; bright indirect light indoors | Full sun to part shade |
| Water | Medium; keep evenly moist, never let soil dry out | Medium to wet |
| Hardiness zones | 11 to 12 | 8 to 10 |
| Bloom months | 12 months | 2 months |
| Deer (Rutgers) | not recorded | Seldom severely damaged (Rutgers B) |
| Cats (ASPCA) | Toxic | Toxic |
| Out of water | Fair | Fair |
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 ↗
Read the full profile
Everything the table holds on each of them, in plain prose.