SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
It is pound for pound the greatest test of strength on water...
VANESSA CALLAHAN: We first tried testing how much weight our water lily could hold several years ago, and we had heard about people standing on these Victoria water lilies.
DETROW: ...The Waterlily Weigh-Off 2025.
CALLAHAN: So I didn't really believe it could hold that much, and I wanted to test it.
DETROW: Vanessa Callahan is with the Denver Botanic Gardens, who host the weigh-off. What she says started is kind of a thought exercise in seeing how much weight water lilies could hold turned into a real worldwide contest.
CALLAHAN: Canada joined us. Australia, the U.K., Spain, South Africa - a ton of countries joined us this year.
DETROW: Forty-seven botanic gardens in nine countries, as well as the U.S., competed with each participant adding weight in their own ways.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: So today, we'll be stacking New York's most iconic cheesecake from Juniors in Brooklyn.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: We have roughly 80 pounds of oranges from the beautiful citrus groves of Central Florida.
DETROW: From toothpicks to dumbbells, the competition was fierce.
CALLAHAN: It looked this year like Missouri Botanical was setting up to be back-to-back champions. They won last year and had an incredible weight, upping themselves by 40 pounds this year, until a new participant showed up.
BRENDAN HUGGINS: We actually had one of our gardeners stand on it, and he's on the lily pad for quite a while before it starts to sink.
DETROW: Brendan Huggins and his team from Bok Tower Gardens in Florida tested their giant leaves with everything they had to win the 2025 prize. For context, we are talking about a really big aquatic plant here, up to the size of a large car tire.
HUGGINS: So getting a different pad up to 183 was a lot of excitement.
DETROW: Topping the closest competition by one pound took skill and patience.
HUGGINS: Putting in the effort to make these Victoria cruzianas as big as they are and as beautiful as they are, it was just - it was really wonderful to see how much joy they had brought from being able to have this payoff and have so much weight put onto one of the pads.
DETROW: With a mixture of sandbags, coral stones and yes, eight-pound bags of Florida oranges, Bok Tower Gardens took home the win by stacking 183 pounds on their strongest lily pad.
HUGGINS: The lily pads that many people are familiar with, you know, you're used to that kind of iPhone-size lily pad that a small bullfrog could sit on versus this that an entire human can get on.
DETROW: Congratulations to all the competitors and Bok Tower Gardens in Florida for winning the Waterlily Weigh-Off 2025. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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