Same meadow, same daisy shape, same toughness reputation. The data finds the daylight between them.
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: black‑eyed susan holds 7 to 36 days while coneflower manages 6 to 7.
In the garden
In the ground they are different commitments entirely: coneflower settles in for years anywhere in zones 3 to 8, while black‑eyed susan is a one-season ticket in most of the country.
The full card
A line is marked only where one flower clearly leads. Equal or too-close values are left plain.
| Field | Coneflower | Black‑eyed Susan |
|---|---|---|
| Vase life, days | 6 to 7 | 7 to 36 |
| Wholesale, per stem | no price on record | $0.60 to $1.18 |
| Fragrance | Species not noted as fragrant; two cultivars are documented as strongly fragrant | not recorded |
| Light | Full sun to part shade | Full sun to partial shade |
| Water | Dry to medium | Medium |
| Hardiness zones | 3 to 8 | 3 to 8 |
| Bloom months | 3 months | 4 months |
| Deer (Rutgers) | Seldom severely damaged (Rutgers B) | Seldom severely damaged (Rutgers B) |
| Cats (ASPCA) | Never evaluated | Never evaluated |
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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