Visitors to Bok Tower Gardens may wonder, as they gaze at a gargantuan lily pad in the reflection pond, “How much weight could that thing hold?”
Now we have an answer: 183 pounds. That is the approximate weight of Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill.
In late August, Bok Tower Gardens claimed first place in the Waterlily Weigh-Off 2025, a competition among more than 40 participants in nine countries.
Taylor Walker, horticulture manager at the Lake Wales attraction, piled bags of oranges and other items onto one of the lily pads in the pond to see how much weight it could support before sinking. At 183 pounds, the lily pad surpassed by a single pound the total from Missouri Botanical Garden, the 2024 champion.
“I would have never, in my wildest dreams, thought we could get 183 pounds on one of these,” Bok Tower Gardens President David Price said. “I thought it would probably be 100.”
Denver Botanic Gardens started the event in 2023 as a social media contest. This year’s showdown included competitors from New York, Chicago and New Orleans, as well as Australia, England and Holland.
A plan from Frederic Law Olmsted Jr., designer of the attraction, shows Victoria water lilies being grown in the moat around Bok Tower, Price said. The exotic plants no longer occupy the moat but have been a continuing feature at the park since it opened in 1929.
Plants cultivated from seeds
Victoria water lilies, endemic to South America, grow much larger than the lily pads of American lotus, which is native to Florida. The lily pad that gave Bok Tower Gardens its title is just over 5 feet across, Price said.
That specimen is an offshoot of a Longwood hybrid, itself a variation on Victoria cruziana developed at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, Price said. Much larger than the two species native to South America, the hybrid displays a red rim that he called “pretty spectacular.”
It might seem surprising, given their stature, but the plants are annuals that the staff at Bok Tower Gardens cultivates from seeds every year.
Each seed is about the size of a chickpea. Bok Tower Gardens germinates the seeds in an aquarium and then moves the plants to large tubs after the lily pads emerge. Once the pads reach about one foot in diameter, the staff transfers them to the reflection pond around May.
The aquatic plants produce a night-blooming flower that is first white and then pink, closing tight during the day. The first night’s flower has to be pollinated by a second-night flower, the pollen carried by a flying beetle, Price said. On the third day, the flower closes up and then sinks underwater to form a seed pod.
Fed with ample nitrogen, the lily pads “just grow tremendously fast,” Price said.
Set in Central Florida, Bok Tower Gardens might have an advantage in growing tropical plants, Price said, though he noted that gardens in northern states have stronger sunlight in the summer.
The lily pads contain a specialized plant tissue, known as aerenchyma, that contains air-filled pockets. The design allows the plant to pump oxygen from the surface to its roots and also provides its buoyancy. Though the pad is only about the thickness of a collard green, a network of veins on its underside gives it structural strength.
Price recalled seeing three young daughters of a former employee stand upon a lily pad at the gardens years ago. When he learned of the Waterlily Weigh-Off, he envisioned one of the pads holding perhaps 100 pounds without sinking.
“When you put the weight on the lily pad, you have to distribute the weight evenly over the pad,” Price said. “So, the technique is to put a stiff board or a piece of Plexiglas on the lily pad and then put your weight out, and that distributes it.”
Pad could have held more?
Walker and his wife, Cissy Stanko, another Bok Tower Gardens employee, learned of the contest and organized plans to enter this year, Price said. Walker waded into the reflection pond as a gardener at the attraction, Miles Bilinski, paddled beside him in a boat carrying the items.
Some competitors weighted their plants with items of geographic significance, such as cans of locally brewed beer. In addition to the sacks of oranges, Walker and Bilkiski hoisted some pieces of limestone from the tower, along with sandbags and metal weights.
Walker had to be careful around the lily pads, which are protected by an array of sharp barbs on their undersides.
“We beat them (Missouri) by one pound, but I think we could have got more on there, but we ran out of weights,” Price said. “The year before, the record was 146 pounds. And so, we had 183 pounds. We said, ‘Sure, this is all we need.’”
Smithsonian magazine ran an article on the Waterlily Weigh-Off, entrants have promoted the results on social media. Since then, plenty of visitors to Bok Tower Gardens have asked to see the water lilies, Price said.
The plants will thrive until the air temperature starts dropping into the 50 degrees. At that point, the pads stop producing new leaves, and the existing leaves become tattered, Price said.
Having taken the title in its first year, Bok Tower Gardens will face keen competition in 2026.
“All the gardens are going to be gunning for us now,” Price said. “I’ve talked to several people from Missouri, and they’ve told us they’re coming for us next year.”
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.
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