Viral TikTok challenge finds waterlily that holds more than 140 pounds

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FILE-Take a look at time lapse video of the infamous corpse flower blooming in 2021. The San Diego Botanic Garden reports that the plants require 7-10 years for the first bloom and only bloom every 5 to 7 years.

What do waterlilies and competition have to do with one another, you might ask? 

It all started at Denver Botanic Gardens. The botanic garden made a TikTok video showing how much weight their Victoria ‘Longwood Hybrid’ Waterlily could hold and challenged several other botanical gardens on TikTok to showcase the strength of their own Victoria waterlilies.

The winner of the challenge would receive a trophy, and earn the title of "Waterlily Heavyweight Champion," according to Erin Bird, Denver Botanic Gardens’ associate director of communication.

Denver’s Victoria ‘Longwood Hybrid’ held up 65 pounds of weight, and it measured at 38 inches in diameter, Denver Botanic Gardens said in the video. 

How the competition began

The garden had the idea in 2021 of seeing how much weight their Victoria Waterlilies could hold. That year, Bird said, the Victoria ‘Longwood Hybrid’ held 85 pounds of weight. 

She said Denver didn’t check its waterlilies' strength again until last year, when they had the idea of "soft-launching" a competition from garden-to-garden. They posted the video weighing the waterlily to TikTok, and it went viral. 

She said after talking with New York Botanical Garden last year, they decided to make the competition a reality for this year. The challenge began in mid-August, and competitors had to submit their competition entries by Aug. 30.

Denver Botanic Gardens received 17 entries in the competition, including two from the U.K: Kew Gardens in London and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland. Sixteen competitors were from botanical gardens, but they even received one entry from the Toldeo Zoo, Bird said. 

"It’s playfully competitive," Bird said. She also said it’s an entry point to get people excited and interested in nature and botanical gardens, with the videos going viral on social media. 

Each garden had to weigh one of its Victoria Waterlilies, to compete. The accepted species for the competition included the Victoria ‘Longwood Hybrid’, Victoria cruziana and Victoria amazonica. The ‘Longwood Hybrid’ is a cross between the cruziana and the amazonica Victoria genes. 

The Victoria Waterlily species are tropical, so, in some climates, like Denver’s, the plants are grown from seedlings each year and have a shorter growing season, Bird said. 

Bird said Denver typically doesn’t plant its lilies in the pools until June, after the average last chance of frost in May, and the lilies are put into outdoor pools that don’t have heating equipment. 

The winner is….

Out of the 17 competitors, however, there could only be one winner, which was announced Tuesday in Denver.

Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis was declared the winner, with their Victoria ‘Longwood Hybrid’ Waterlily holding 142.5 pounds of weight and measuring 5 feet in diameter. The lilly just edged the Naples Botanical Garden in Naples, Florida, who came in second place with their Victoria Waterlily, maintaining 135 pounds of weight and measuring 4.25 feet across. 

"It was fun to watch everybody else’s videos that participated with the Victorias," said Missouri Botanical Garden’s Senior Nursery Manager Derek Lyle. "The competition was even greater this year, so it was more exciting."

Lyle said Missouri Botanical Garden was invited to participate in the challenge in 2023 but was unable to due to the timing of the competition. So, they were prepared this year when they got Denver Botanic Gardens’ invitation to the competition this year. 

 "I remember everybody asking me if I think we could win, I said, ‘I think we have a very good shot of it!'" Lyle said.

He said because they have been growing their lilies for a while, they knew what to expect of the plants.

"We had never officially seen or tested how much they could hold," Lyle said. "So, we were going into this blind." 

Lyle said the team of horticulturists at Missouri Botanical Garden contemplated using St. Louis-themed items to calculate how much weight their waterlilies could hold, but opted for sandbags and weights instead to get a clearer weight estimation and more even distribution across the lily pad.

"We wanted to push it to the limit because we have a very fruitful display," he said. 

Lyle said in 2019, when the St. Louis Blues hockey team won the Stanley Cup, the garden had placed the Cup on one of the Victoria Waterlilies. The Stanley Cup weighs 34.5 pounds, according to the Hockey Hall of Fame website. "We knew for a fact that it could hold 40, approximately, because it wasn’t flinching at all with the Stanley Cup on it," Lyle said. 

The Stanley Cup on a Victoria Waterlily in 2019 after the St. Louis Blues won the NHL championships. 

(Missouri Botanical Garden / FOX Weather)

Other competitors also used sandbags and weights for the waterlilies, but some used things like decks of cards or cans of soft drinks. 

Lyle said the Victoria Waterlily Missouri Botanical Garden chose for the competition was carefully selected, because other waterlilies that may have been bigger had holes or had deteriorated over time.

"We have to remove deteriorating pads twice a week," he said. "Just to keep the pool looking nice and clean." 

Lyle said Greta and Claire, the two horticulturists featured in Missouri Botanical Garden’s TikTok video, selected the pad that was the most robust and structurally sound. 

Missouri Botanical Garden's Victoria Waterlilies

Missouri Botanical Garden’s waterlily collection dates to the 19th century, and they even have photos of people standing on the Victoria Waterlilies from 1890. Lyle said the garden’s current collection’s genetics come from the mid-1990s. 

Photo of woman standing on a Victoria Waterlily in Missouri Botanical Garden in 1890.

(Missouri Botanical Garden / FOX Weather)

Like Denver Botanic Gardens, Missouri Botanical Garden also produces their Victoria Waterlilies from seeds each year. He said they sow the seeds in a greenhouse in late January, before transferring them to the pool in late April or early May. 

Lyle said Missouri’s warm and humid climate and heated pool helps the waterlilies get so strong and large. "We’re very lucky that we have a warmer climate to where we can start them earlier than Denver." 

He said a heated pool was added to Missouri Botanical Garden in 2018 to be able to extend the waterlilies’ growing season. 

Like Denver, though, the waterlilies do face some challenges when growing in St. Louis.  Lyle said the rain slows and sometimes stops the waterliles' growth, because they think the climate is changing.

"Sometimes when the storms come through, we’ll get up to 2–3 inches of rain in a couple hours," Lyle said. "That rain will actually slow them down because that rainwater is cooler than the water in the pool." 

He said from there, they can start growing again, or they will go dormant. When the growing season for the Victoria Waterlilies is over, Lyle said the plants are physically removed from the pools, usually in the first week of October. 

He said the Victoria Waterlilies have to be individually removed from the pools, and they are also covered in thorns, which makes removal trickier. 

Weight of the lily pads is also a factor. "They’re very heavy," Lyle said. "Each pad can weigh up to 40–50 pounds at the end of the season," he said. The measurement of the waterlilies each year varies, but the average is 6.5 feet, Lyle said. 

Missouri Botanical Garden’s largest pad on record was in 2019 and was recorded at 93 inches across, or 7.75 feet, Lyle said. 

Defending the title in 2025

As for Missouri Botanical Garden’s participation in the 2025 Waterlily Weigh-Off challenge, Lyle said the garden has to defend their title. 

"Everybody’s coming for us. So, we know we’re really going to have to step it up and get a little bit more creative or a little bit more explorative," he said. "We’ve got a target on our back!" 

When it came to the closest competitors, Lyle said he was most worried about Naples Botanical Garden, which came second because of the length of their growing season in Florida. "I knew they were going to be close to us, or at least the winners."

But in the end, Missouri Botanical Garden succeeded in the challenge. "I was pleased to see we were able to defeat Naples in a very kind and professional, joyous way," Lyle said. 

Lyle said when he found out Missouri Botanical Garden had won, he shared it with Greta and Claire, the two horticulturists in their video. "They were overjoyed. They were very excited that they got to, for one, participate, but then win!" he said of their reactions.

He said the Waterlily Heavyweight Champion trophy will probably stay somewhere in the horticulture department, but the final display location within the garden is to be determined. 

For a full list of each of the 17 competitors' final waterlily weights, click here.