The Waterlily Weigh-Off began in 2023 as a creative way to teach people about plants through social media

NEED TO KNOW

• The Waterlily Weigh-Off began in 2023 as a creative way to teach people about plants through social media
• Bok Tower Gardens in Florida won the 2026 title with a Victoria water lily supporting 285 pounds
• The competition now includes over 70 participants globally, with creative videos becoming a major part of the event

A giant water lily leaf in Florida recently supported 285 lbs., setting a new record in a competition that has grown into an unlikely global hit on TikTok.

The Waterlily Weigh-Off began in 2023 as a simple experiment at Denver Botanic Gardens. The team wanted to see how much weight one of its enormous Victoria water lily leaves could support. Then, after testing their own plant, they wondered if other gardens would be willing to try it out as well.

The idea fit naturally with Denver Botanic Gardens’ approach to social media, where the team looks for entertaining ways to teach people about plants. Victoria water lilies were an obvious choice: Their enormous, circular leaves already tend to stop visitors in their tracks.

Erin Bird, the garden’s director of marketing and communications, tells PEOPLE that the team had seen people posing on giant water lilies elsewhere and started wondering what their own plants could support.

“We were like, ‘Let’s see if we can hold it,’” Bird recalls.

They tested it, got their answer and decided to turn the experiment into a challenge. Taking loose inspiration from the Ice Bucket Challenge, Denver tagged several gardens and encouraged them to test their own lilies.

The team wasn’t sure anyone would participate. Botanical gardens maintain living collections, and putting substantial weight on a leaf comes with the possibility of damaging it. But to their surprise, other gardens joined in. Soon, what started as a one-off social media experiment soon became an annual competition. More gardens joined each year, the winning weights climbed and participants began finding increasingly creative ways to document their attempts online.

By 2026, the Waterlily Weigh-Off had grown into an international event, bringing together more than 70 gardens, zoos, parks and growers across 13 countries.

@denverbotanic

Saddle up, folks! 🤠 It’s time for the 2026 Waterlily Weigh-Off! 🎉🪷 More than 70 public gardens, zoos, parks and growers from around the world will compete to see how much weight their Victoria Waterlily leaves can hold through Friday, August 28! Follow #waterlilyweighoff26 or keep tabs on our profile playlist “Waterlily Weigh-Off 2026” to see all the entries in one place!   The 2025 winner, Bok Tower Gardens, will pass on (or keep) the trophy. Let’s see if anyone can beat their weight of 183lbs! 👀🪷💪 Alas, that is not us! (not this year at least 👀😆) Denver Botanic Gardens kicks off the competition with an 80-lb weigh-in! 😅 Phew! May the strongest waterlily win! Our entry: 80 lb / 36.28 kg 40.5 in / 102.87 cm Psssst, if you are reading this far, thank you! Thank you for your support and enthusiasm of this silly, goofy thing we started in 2023. 💕 We hope everyone’s videos bring you joy or at least make you chuckle! 🤭

♬ original sound – Denver Botanic Gardens

The winning weights have also continued to climb. In 2023, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew won with a leaf that supported 96 pounds. The following year, Missouri Botanical Garden raised the bar to 142.1 pounds. In 2025, Bok Tower Gardens in Florida took the title with a leaf that supported 183 pounds.

This year, Bok Tower Gardens returned to defend its title, and raised the bar by more than 100 pounds.

The plants themselves help explain why the challenge works.

Rachel Small-Brooks, assistant manager of social media and communications at Denver Botanic Gardens, says the leaves’ unusual structure is part of what makes the weigh-off possible.

“You’ll see maybe like nine big circles, that’s all connected to one plant underground,” Small-Brooks explains.

Victoria water lilies are native to South America and can produce leaves that stretch several feet across the water. The leaves spread across the surface as the plants compete for space and sunlight, while their structure helps keep them buoyant.

Their ability to support weight, however, isn’t something they evolved to do. “They didn’t really evolve to hold weight,” Small-Brooks says. “They just evolved to get really big.”

That sheer size, combined with the leaf’s structure and carefully distributed weight, can allow a healthy Victoria water lily to support far more than its delicate appearance suggests.

“We like to say typically they can hold, like, a person,” Small-Brooks says.

But as the weigh-off has grown, it has become about more than simply finding the strongest leaf. Participants have increasingly used their entries as an opportunity to show off their personalities and creativity.

One Minnesota participant, for example, turned its entry into a Midwestern meal, placing foods including tater tot casserole onto the lily. Small-Brooks says it remains one of her favorite entries, even though the stunt didn’t quite end as planned.

“It had a very tragic ending,” she jokes.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden brought in comedian Joe Pera for its entry this year, which Small-Brooks particularly enjoyed because of his reaction to the unusual competition unfolding around him.

“It was really fun to see his confusion as to why the heck we do this,” she says.

@denverbotanic

Announcing the 2026 Waterlily Weigh-Off Champion! 🏆 (and the new Featherweight Champion and Fan Favorite) Thanks to all of the competitors across 12 countries for this epic botanical battle of brain and brawn! The challenge will return for season five in August 2027! Tag your local public garden, museum or zoo in the comments to get them to join!    Search #waterlilyweighoff26 to catch up on all of the entries. There are so many good ones this year that weren’t featured here! You can also see more entries on Instagram. @Bok Tower Gardens @New York Botanical Garden

♬ original sound – Denver Botanic Gardens

Other participants have leaned into pop culture. Eden Project in Cornwall channeled Jurassic Park, while Brookgreen Gardens created a mockumentary-style video inspired by The Office.

The videos have become such a central part of the event that Denver expanded the competition this year to reward creativity, not just brute strength. The new “featherweight” category gives gardens with smaller Victoria water lilies a chance to compete based on spirit, humor and originality rather than how much weight their leaves can support.

Small-Brooks says it celebrates participants willing to have fun with the challenge, including coworkers prepared to “embarrass themselves online” for a good video.

Denver also introduced a home-grower category in 2026, opening the event to nurseries, garden centers and individual growers with Victoria water lilies of their own. But while the weigh-off may look spontaneous on TikTok, organizing it is anything but.

Small-Brooks begins contacting potential participants in late winter and early spring, months before the first videos appear online.

“We dedicate so much time ahead of, you know, when you actually see it go live,” Bird says.

With dozens of organizations involved, Small-Brooks coordinates when larger participants post so the entries don’t all arrive at once. Once the weigh-off begins, she tracks weights, leaf diameters, locations and video links in what she describes as a “giant spreadsheet.”

“It’s a lot of work, but it’s really fun,” she says.

That coordination has created a community among botanical gardens that might otherwise never work together. Participants watch one another’s videos and find inspiration in the different ways each institution approaches the same unusual challenge.

“We’re always, I think, kind of inspiring each other and uplifting each other,” Small-Brooks says. “That’s really just, like, the spirit of the competition.”

@denverbotanic

Help us name our Victoria waterlily and ask us questions!  🤠🪷 The winning name will be selected by Vanessa aka The Nerdy Naturalist aka the lady in the video 😆 #waterlilyweighoff26

♬ original sound – Denver Botanic Gardens

And the audience has embraced that spirit, too. Viewers have begun treating the annual weigh-off as more than a series of plant videos.

“We’re seeing commentary comparing it to Fat Bear Week or Spooky Lake Week,” Bird says. “They’re like, ‘This is our Olympics, this is our Super Bowl.’”

The attention has also started translating into visits to the gardens themselves. At Denver Botanic Gardens, Tamara Kilbane, curator of aquatic collections, has noticed younger visitors recognizing the Victoria water lilies from videos they’ve seen online. Small-Brooks and Bird say some point out the plants when they reach the ponds, then begin asking horticulturists and volunteers questions about them.

“It has been so exciting beyond anything that we ever anticipated,” Bird says.

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