Denver Botanic Gardens (@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

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! 🤭

Trigger warning: BUGS! 🪰🤢  Test the pH of our pitcher plants with Vanessa the Nerdy Naturalist and see what’s inside! #pitcherplant #denverbotanicgardens #carnivorousplant

Let curiosity lead you through “Realm of Wonder: Izumi Yokoyama” 🌸🌙 This new exhibition is on display inside the Freyer-Newman Center and is on view through Feb. 7. Included with Gardens’ admission #denver #art #thingstododenver

Fall is for the Goths 🖤🐈‍⬛💀 So if you are goth (or goth adjacent), don’t miss a daytime stroll through the Gardens or visit after dark for Ghosts in the Gardens, a self-guided haunted tour that takes you through the first floor of Waring House and a handful of stops throughout the property.

Apologies to those with misophonia!👂🍽️🚫 We've got a real taste test on our hands! 🍃𝘈𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘰𝘣𝘢 📍Oak Grove #pawpaw #denverbotanicgardens #fruit

"What do you mean I have to work?" 😾‼️Meet Pumpkin, our Pest Manager. She is a sweet girl but doesn't hold back on the sassy faces. 😅 Happy #caturday!

Datura wrightii has it all. 🤘🖤 ☑️ Spiky seed pods. ☑️ Lethal toxicity when ingested. ☑️ Night-pollinating hawkmoths that can sometimes become intoxicated after drinking the nectar. (They nap on the flower, or even fall in flight after leaving datura.)

Raise your hand if you live in Denver, see this video and have a mushroom shirt in your closet. ✋🍄 Here, Alissa with our Herbarium explains how mushrooms are only part of the fungal lifecycle. While peak mushroom foraging season in the mountains is over, there are plenty of mushrooms to explore (but not ingest!) around town.

Is the big lump with knobs reference aging us? 🌽🤔 #cornmaze #thingstododenver #denverbotanicgardens

Did you know that green means "cuisine" for most plants? 🌱= 🍽️ But if you look closely, you'll see Autumn Crocus bloom with no visible green at all. How can that be?!?! 🤯 There's always a catch. Luckily we have Vanessa, the Nerdy Naturalist, to explain.

What an amazing couple of weeks! 🪷🎉 #waterlilyweighoff26

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

Giddy-up! 🪷🤠✨ The Waterlily Weigh-Off starts Monday, Aug. 17. Public gardens, zoos and growers from around the world will compete to see how much weight their Victoria waterlily leaves can hold. Stay tuned through Friday, Aug. 28, when the 2026 Heavyweight Champion will be crowned. To keep up with the competition and vote for your favorite entry, follow #WaterlilyWeighOff26 on Tik Tok or @waterlilyweighoff on Instagram. Please note that not all entries will be displayed on TikTok, as some participants do not have an account. Voting for the Fan Favorite entry will take place on Instagram in the @waterlilyweighoff account. #waterlilyweighoff26

It’s Vanessa’s birthday and you know what that means... we let her talk for as long as she wants about whatever she wants! 🫣 Who doesn’t love some botanical vocab on a Tuesday? Trichome. Stellate. Peltate. What brilliant, easy-to-pronounce word would you call them? Happy birthday Vanessa! You are the nuance to our trichome!  ❤️ The Social Media Team

Dormant people. Dormant! 🍂😂 The plants are not dead during the winter, but rather they are greatly reducing energy use to focus on root and stem strength to be ready to put up new growth on the spring.

Patty, our children’s librarian, is a woman of many talents! Story time, book club and cloning herself! 😂 Explore our collection of botanical and environment-themed nonfiction, fiction, poetry and children’s titles. We also have two study rooms available at no cost to visitors! Or you can stop by @copperdoorcoffee to get some study time in!    📕 Open Tuesday – Sunday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. 📘 Free admission to the library. Enter through the Freyer – Newman Center entrance. 📗 Admission is required to explore the art galleries and the Gardens. 📙 Members may check out books as part of their membership benefits.

Proof that plant people are people too. 🌱😅 Well, maybe not Mike and Kevin... They are too perfect for bloopers! 🤟   Here's to 2026! Let us know what your favorite video was this year and what you'd like to see in the New Year.

Just what you wanted right? A holiday plant gift guide from our grumpiest Horticulturist! 😅 All jokes aside, happy holidays!   Plants to gift: 💚 Selaginella, or spike moss for an easy plant 💔 Calathea, any will do to humble your frenemy 💚 Dracaena, for another easy-to-care-for plant 🖤 Nepenthes, or tropical pitcher plants for your best friend that happens to be goth

Don’t eat the books! Smelling and admiring only!! 😂 Angela replies to some of your comments from her last video… yes the chair is tall because the desk is tall! Don’t ask us why the desk is tall please!!!🙏 #asmr?

Lots and lots of rocks.   Big rocks, small rocks, live rocks, stacked rocks. We got em all.    When the plants go dormant, the rocks in our gardens pop! Don’t let the title “horticulturist” fool you into thinking these guys only care about plants. They love a rock and crevice garden as much as the next one!

Say it louder for the people in the back! 👏📢 SPANISH MOSS IS NEITHER SPANISH NOR A MOSS! Just wait until the end... Vanessa the Nerdy Naturalist pulls out the microscope for this one! 🔬

Digitization = good, but it’s not all encompassing! Plus... it is a little more work than one lonely archivist and one small archive can handle.

¿Cómo les dices tú? 🤔Comenta abajo. — How do you say it? 🤔Comment below

No sass detected. Well… almost. Just don’t fern-get to water this one!💦   🌥️ Likes shade or part shade 💧 Water daily if you live in a dry area like Denver. 😶‍🌫️ Provide supplemental humidity. Keep a tray underneath to catch and retain water, place a humidifier in your room, keep it in a bathroom or use a spray bottle.

Not a rose, but a zombie? 🤔🪦🥀 Learn more about this backward plant and it’s sneaky strategy to avoid death with Vanessa the Nerdy Naturalist.   📍𝘉𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘦𝘢 𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘻𝘢, or Rose of Venezuela located in Boettcher Tropical Conservatory

When you give a mouse a cookie, but it’s an archivist giving you Halloween costume inspo...   Outfit ideas from Angela, our Helen Fowler Library’s Archivist: 💜 Fuchsia Flower, coined after Leonard Fuchs. 🍺 Hops? Wear all green and drink beer all night... not a horrible idea. 🦇 The black bat flower! Wear black with bat accents and carry around a yam, or even better, sweet potato casserole! 🌱 Dirt a.k.a soil to really spook your friends!   Disclaimer: The watering can is empty and please don’t eat yams in our library. 😆

Bodies by Chatfield™ brought to you by our 10-acre pumpkin patch! 💪🎃 Thank you to our incredible staff and volunteers who worked tirelessly to clear two large walking paths for Pumpkin Festival at Chatfield Farms this weekend, Oct. 10–12, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.   🎟️Head to our website to purchase your tickets.  ⏱️The earlier timeslots are selling quick! 🎃But don’t fret! We’ve estimated that there are over 50,000 pumpkins and gourds waiting for you in our field!

We DARE you to join us for "Ghosts in the Gardens - Open Air Scare," Oct. 10-12, 17-19 and 30 for a self-guided tour with storytellers throughout the Gardens and inside the first floor of Waring House... at night. 👻😬🦇 Hear about staff supernatural encounters and the spooky history of a long-gone cemetery!🪦   🕸️ Head to our web-site to secure your tickets! 🕸️

It's HOA HOA HOA season at the Helen Fowler Library, whether you like it or not! 🍂📕☕  #twilight #fall   Where you been loca? Helen Fowler Library is open Tue-Sun, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. inside the Freyer-Newman Center at our York Street location. It is free to visit, but checking out materials is a member benefit. Access to the art galleries and gardens requires admission.