Both wake up when the rest of the garden sleeps; they answer to different owners.
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: hellebore holds 10 to 17 days while anemone manages 3 to 10.
In the garden
Both come back, but not everywhere: hellebore shrugs off zone 4 winters while anemone taps out below zone 7.
The full card
A line is marked only where one flower clearly leads. Equal or too-close values are left plain.
| Field | Hellebore | Anemone |
|---|---|---|
| Vase life, days | 10 to 17 | 3 to 10 |
| Wholesale, per stem | no price on record | $1.50 to $2.40 |
| Light | Partial shade to deep shade; tolerates dappled sunlight, intolerant of bright winter sun | Full sun to partial shade |
| Water | Medium; consistent moisture preferred, drought tolerant once established, sensitive to soggy soil | Medium, sharp drainage essential |
| Hardiness zones | 4 to 9 | 7 to 10 |
| Bloom months | 3 months | 3 months |
| Deer (Rutgers) | Rarely damaged (Rutgers A) | not recorded |
| Cats (ASPCA) | Toxic | Never evaluated |
| Out of water | not recorded | Poor |
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.