Last year, Macy's Flower Show got a lift, literally, when it returned to its longtime home on the eighth-floor auditorium after two years on the downtown store's first floor. This year, the show adopted a flight theme and filled the air with flower-filled balloons, parachutes and trapezes that bloom overhead. Nearly 500 people flooded into the fragrant auditorium during the show's first 10 minutes Sunday. Many of the youngest visitors wore painted-on whiskers and glittered noses, souvenirs from the store's morning "Brunch With the Bunny" event.

"It's so awesome coming down here in the spring," said Holly Romenesko of Chaska, who remembers visiting the Flower Show with her parents when she was a child.

On Sunday, she continued the ritual, bringing her 2-year-old daughter, Mallory, and Mallory's grandmother, Libby Romenesko, who was visiting from Michigan. Mallory's favorite thing? "The bumblebees," she said, pointing to bumblebee topiaries made of yellow kalanchoe and black ornamental peppers.

New this year: Buckthorn, the bane of local landscapes, makes several appearances, in trellises and a twig gazebo.

If you visit more than once, odds are you'll see a slightly different show. Displays are freshened, with plants changed out every few days.

KIM PALMER