Both own early summer with fist-sized blooms, and the woody one is not the longer-lived of the two.
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 peonies carry published vase trials (3 to 7 days); for hydrangea macrophylla no postharvest record exists, and we do not guess.
In the garden
Both come back, but not everywhere: peonies shrug off zone 3 winters while hydrangea macrophylla taps out below zone 6. And if deer walk through, the choice makes itself: Rutgers rates peonies A while hydrangea macrophylla gets eaten.
The full card
A line is marked only where one flower clearly leads. Equal or too-close values are left plain.
| Field | Hydrangea macrophylla | Peonies |
|---|---|---|
| Vase life, days | no trials published | 3 to 7 |
| Wholesale, per stem | no price on record | $3 to $8 |
| Fragrance | Not notably fragrant as a species; cultivar Ayesha is lightly fragrant | Fragrant by cultivar |
| Light | Partial shade to deep shade; full sun only if soil stays consistently moist | Full sun to part shade |
| Water | Medium moisture | Medium |
| Hardiness zones | 6 to 9 | 3 to 8 |
| Bloom months | 2 months | 2 months |
| Deer (Rutgers) | Occasionally severely damaged (Rutgers C) | Rarely damaged (Rutgers A) |
| Cats (ASPCA) | Toxic | Toxic |
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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