Denver Botanic Gardens starts viral water lily competition [Video]

DENVER — How much weight can a lily pad hold?

That’s the question Botanic Gardens across the world are answering in a viral social media challenge issued by the Denver Botanic Gardens this year.

They’re not your typical pond lily pads, either. They’re the Gardens’ power players, the Victoria cruziana, Victoria Amazonica and Victoria ‘Longwood Hybrid.’ If you’ve been to the Denver Botanic Gardens, you’ve seen them. They look like massive floating cake tins, with raised sides like short walls.

Denver started the challenge, which spokeswoman Erin Bird said they “soft-launched” last year. In 2023, there were a few entries in the competition, but it exploded in 2024. 

Bird said Denver and the New York Botanical Gardens’ TikTok videos went so viral that people were leaving comments on their posts this year, saying that they’d been waiting all year for the return of the competition!

Watch Denver’s viral …