Lily Pad

Lily Pad is an aquatic plant appearing in both main series Plants vs. Zombies series games. It can be planted on water tiles, namely on pool rows in Pool and Fog levels in the first game and flooded tiles in the Big Wave Beach in the second game, creating a platform upon which other plants can be placed.

Origins
It is based on the species belonging to the plant family Nymphaeaceae, consisting of flowering water plants, also known as water lilies.

Plants vs. Zombies
Lily Pad is unlocked after the player has completed Level 2-10. It has slightly more health than the average plant, being able to withstand up to 6 bites from an average zombie. All underground plants, Flower Pot and other aquatic plants with the exception of Cattail cannot be placed on Lily Pad.

Plants vs. Zombies 2
Lily Pad is unlocked after completing Big Wave Beach - Day 1, and is unique to. Unlike in the first game, Lily Pad is only vulnerable when there is water underneath; if the tide recedes and Lily Pad is on dry land, it cannot be targeted by any zombie other than Gargantuars and Surfer Zombies. Likewise, underground plants can be planted on Lily Pad only when there is no water, but will continue to exist if the tide goes past Lily Pad.

Unlike other plants, a planted Lily Pad has only a small chance to refund with sun if dug up with the upgraded Shovel. It also cannot be revived by Intensive Carrot, unless if it is smashed on wet sand by a Deep Sea Gargantuar.

Plants vs. Zombies
Lily Pad

Lily Pads let you plant non-aquatic plants on top of them.

Special: non-aquatic plants can be planted on top of it

Must be planted in water

Lily Pad never complains. Lily Pad never wants to know what's going on. Put a plant on top of Lily Pad, he won't say a thing. Does he have startling opinions or shocking secrets? Nobody knows. Lily Pad keeps it all inside.

Cost: 25

Recharge: fast

Plants vs. Zombies 2
Sun cost: 25

RECHARGE:  Fast

Lily Pads let you plant non-aquatic plants on top of them.

Usage: can also be planted under non-aquatic plants

Not many people know this, but Lily Pad absolutely loves square dancing. There he is, a circular plant gliding across the dance floor making squares. He loves how it pushes his boundaries and really makes him think outside the sphere.

Cattail
Cattails can attack the whole screen with their spikes.

Plant Food effect
When given Plant Food, Lily Pad will spawn four copies of itself in adjacent tiles. The copies do not provide sun when dug up.

Costumed
It creates Lily Pads in a 3x3 area around it.

Strategies
Lily Pad is a vital plant in levels with water lanes, as it allows deployment of other other land-based plants to guard those lanes possible. While aquatic and aerial options are also available for this task such as Tangle Kelp, Sea-shroom in the first game and Rotobaga in the second, they lack area-of-effect capability and thus can be overwhelmed by the ever increasing amount of zombies present. The player should still exercise caution when planting Lily Pads however, as this effectively means that all plants will have their cost increased by 25 sun, which can become substantial if there are extensive plans to use water tiles.

Plants vs. Zombies
LIly Pad can be used to bait Dolphin Rider Zombies into jumping early, slowing them down in the process.

Plants vs. Zombies 2
Lily Pad's importance has further increased in the second game: As the tides can fully cover the entire field and any ground plant not on a Lily Pad will be swept away by the tide, Lily Pad can effectively be considered equivalent to Flower Pot on the Roof levels. The short recharge time and cheap price also allows Lily Pad to work as a bait to force Deep Sea Gargantuars and Surfer Zombies to use their attack early, depleting the latter's surfboards and preventing them for harming other plants.

Planting ground plants that have to let zombies get through to attack like Spikeweed, Spikerock, or Celery Stalker when the tide is high enough is not recommended as zombies can eat the Lily Pad and the plant will fall in the water.

Specific to Plants vs. Zombies

 * When trying to plant a Lily Pad on the ground, the game says "Lily Pads can only be planted on water."
 * Lily Pad is one of the twelve plants that appear in the seed selection screen after obtaining Grave Buster on the online version, the others being Ice-shroom, Doom-shroom, Potato Mine, Threepeater, Tangle Kelp, Jalapeno, Spikeweed, Torchwood, Tall-nut, Cactus, and Blover.
 * In the Nintendo DS version, Lily Pad's animation is static and does not float up and down.
 * If any Imitater aquatic plants are planted on the water, the "splash" sound and effect will happen twice.
 * In the iPhone or iPod Touch version of the game, the Lily Pad seed packet shows it facing backwards.

Specific to Plants vs. Zombies 2

 * If the player tried to bring Lily Pad on any Far Future day before Day 8, the text will say "Complete future10 to unlock using Lily Pad on this level." The same glitch occurred with Tangle Kelp. This bug was fixed in the 3.2.1 update.
 * Lily Pad, Hot Potato and Perfume-shroom are the only plants without Endless Zone cards.
 * Before the 4.0 update, pre-planted or Plant Food-created Lily Pads could give sun, effectively bolstering sun production, specifically in Last Stand levels.