At this year’s biggest Twin Cities flower show, calla lilies and cape daisies will bloom among Louis Vuitton handbags and Cole Haan fashion boots.

Macy’s, the latest keeper of Minneapolis’ venerable department store on Nicollet Mall, is moving the annual show from the eighth-floor auditorium to the first floor.

It’s just seven floors, but those who remember Dayton’s aren’t thrilled with the shift.

The garden club that Kent Petterson belongs to won’t see the Macy’s and Bachman’s Spring Flower Show at all — at least not as a group.

“We usually go to Dayton’s, I mean Marshall Field’s, I mean Macy’s, for that particular show for our March meeting every year,” said Petterson, who owns Terrace Horticultural Books in St. Paul. “But since they changed the format and it’s not quite the same. It doesn’t fit our needs as well, so we’re going to the Como Conservatory instead.”

It’s too commercial for Petterson.

“The flower show was something you could go to and feel like it was in Neverland. It was another place, set aside for the thought and the idea of spring and plants and beauty and the fragrance of all those wonderful growing things gathered together,” he said. “When I heard they were moving it, I guess I feel like now it’s a setting for selling stuff, as opposed to just a flower show.”

But Macy’s isn’t trying to mess with a Minnesota tradition, said one of the retail chain’s vice presidents. In a way, the store is returning to its roots: The flower show made its debut on the first floor of Dayton’s in March 1960. It moved upstairs after the auditorium was built.

“After we completed the remodel last year, we talked about how great it turned out and how to bring more activity to the floor,” said Michelle Mesenburg, a divisional vice president. “We decided, ‘Why not bring it back to the first floor and not only showcase the floor but expand the experience of the flower show and allow more guests in our store to access the flower show on an easier and more regular basis?’ ”

What’s next? Tinkering with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade?

“They didn’t propose moving the Macy’s parade to the first floor of 34th Street, did they?” joked Jim McComb of the McComb Group, a retail and real estate consulting firm.

“My wife goes every year to the flower show — she’s one of the people who feels it’s an important tradition. I’m having a difficult time imagining how they can do it and get the same impression they do in the auditorium, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

This year’s theme, Gadina Africana, is billed as “an exotic African flower garden and celebration of the art, music and life of Africa.” The creative force behind the show, Jamie Becker, said there will be just as many flowers and plants.

“It will have more energy. It will be more like a festival,” said Becker, Macy’s visual marketing guru. “Imagine a city block planted with flowers.”

On Thursday, local artisans worked on set pieces in the Macy’s auditorium, with plans to move their creations to the first floor three days before the show starts. In another new twist, the show will need to be assembled at night, when the store is closed.

“It’s an extensive layout; it runs through the entire main floor,” said Bachman’s president, Dale Bachman. “It’s a tremendous effort, and I think it would have been easier for Macy’s to have it in the auditorium. But the tradition isn’t about the auditorium. The tradition is the flower show.”

Chicago floral designer Mike Schneider said he thinks Minnesotans will like the new location. Schneider has worked as a designer for the first-floor spring flower show at the Macy’s on State Street in Chicago.

“It’s like entering a jungle when you go in the first floor. They have flowers at every turn,” said Schneider, manager of Marcel Florist, a few blocks from the Chicago Macy’s. “And not only flowers, but enormous plantings, rhododendron bushes and maple trees — they literally bring the outdoors in. People come from miles around to see it.”

Bachman said Mother Nature — not the location — is the biggest factor in how many people show up.

“Predicting the attendance is always as difficult as predicting the weather in March,” Bachman said.

IF YOU GO

What: Macy’s and Bachman’s Spring Flower Show

When: March 21 to April 7, during store hours

Where: Macy’s, 700 on the Mall, downtown Minneapolis

Admission: Free

Theme: Gadina Africana

Details: About 3,300 square feet of flowers and exotic foliage will cover the first floor of Macy’s, including many blossoms rarely seen in the upper Midwest.

Molly Millett can be reached at mollymillett@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5505.

source : www.twincities.com