What’s happening for Lily Fest 2024?

SAN ANGELO, Texas ( Concho Valley Homepage ) — San Angelo residents have once again been invited to the International Water Lily Collection to have fun among the floating flowers during Lily Fest. Here’s what you need to know.

This year’s festival is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 21, from 9 a.m. to noon at 2 S. Park St. Several activities will be available during this time, including bounce houses, arts and crafts and tours of the site’s lily pools.

“Lily Fest is essentially just a festival to celebrate and bring awareness to the park,” Taylor Twombly, director of the International Water Lily Collection, said. “It’s a family-friendly event, just something where people can get out and have a good time.”

Admission to the event is free. Food and drink can be purchased from vendors that will be present, such as Kona Ice and Travelin’ Tom’s Coffee.

Twombly said that the event was first held in the late 1990s as a fun-filled day for people to enjoy and spread awareness about the park. It was started by Ken Landon, the former director of the collection and a founding member of the International Water Lily & Water Gardening Society, who pioneered the hybridization and discovery of several types of water lilies found across the world before his death in July 2021 .

“Ken Landon started Lily Fest as a way of bringing awareness to the lilies,” Twombly said. “He was the No. 1 hybridizer in the world, and his primary focus was the creation of new types of water lilies.”

Twombly stated that the International Water Lily Collection began as a Work Projects Administration project in 1986 after the City of San Angelo asked Landon to display his collection to the public. The collection has since grown to house approximately 300 lily varieties, with the park housing a portion of that total across seven pools.

For more information about Lily Fest, visit the International Water Lily Collection’s Lily Fest webpage.

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