Farewell to the flower show: Five decades of downtown in bloom

'Simply enchanting! ... a flower extravaganza with an international air."

That was how Dayton's enticed winter-weary shoppers to its downtown store in March 1960 with the promise of fresh blooms arranged amid the main-floor merchandise.

The display proved popular, but wasn't repeated the next spring, or the one after that. It wasn't until 1963 that Dayton's added a large auditorium on its eighth floor to host fashion shows and other events. The following spring, that space was transformed into a fragrant floral fantasyland to beckon the public.

"If you enjoyed Dayton's Flower Show in 1960, you'll be doubly enchanted this year!" promised ads in March 1964.

And an annual tradition was born, one that endured for more than 50 years, under the ownership/brands of three department store chains — Dayton's to Marshall Field's to Macy's. During decades of corporate and cultural changes, the flower show bloomed on, luring thousands downtown to see the spectacle.

"It was a big outing. We used to dress up like Easter Sunday to go see it," said Heidi Heiland, owner of Heidi's Lifestyle Gardens and GrowHaus, who attended every show since she was a child and had started to bring her young granddaughters. "That burst of spring ... the feeling was magical. I think because we have such long winters, we need it more than other cities."

Other department stores around the country put on flower shows, starting with Macy's in the 1940s. But only Minneapolis had a space like the eighth-floor auditorium, a huge blank canvas where it was possible to create a magical world.

Flower shows in other cities tend to be a series of vignettes, he said, but the shows mounted in the auditorium surrounded visitors with color, sights and scents.

"It's very unique and doesn't exist anywhere else," agreed Dale Bachman, CEO of Bachman's, the family-owned garden firm that has been a partner on every show since the beginning, providing plants, setup and maintenance. "It's really a theatrical space."

Over the years, the flower shows got increasingly elaborate, with high-concept themes, such as a 1995 homage to Copenhagen's famed Tivoli Gardens.

"In the early years, we didn't have a staff of carpenters building and painting things," said Barkla. Some shows featured mechanical figures; others had live animals, including horses and pigs, donkeys and ducks.

Barkla would take each year's theme and design a base plan, then a Bachman's expert would create a landscape plan to interpret the design in horticultural form. For the last three shows, that person was project manager Kelly Hooper. "As a child, I went to several shows," she said. "I never imagined as an adult I'd be part of something so amazing."

Bachman even got married at the flower show in 1973 when the theme was "An Old-Fashioned Garden." His bride, Ruth, lobbied for her church in St. Paul, but Bachman prevailed. "I wanted an outdoor wedding and didn't want to take a chance on the weather," he said.

The thousands of visitors who took the escalator to the eighth floor year after year saw a symphony of theatrical and botanical perfection. But behind the scenes, there was plenty of perspiration.

"There were a lot of Type A personalities involved," Bachman said. "It was a challenge to keep balancing all the participants."

Sometimes things went awry. For 1974's show, "Cherry Blossom Time," the cherry trees failed to bloom for the show. "They were sticks. People weren't too happy with us," Bachman said. And one night he got a call shortly before midnight, informing him that the flower show's pond was leaking. He woke a pool expert, and by 1 a.m., they were both at the store with leak-detection equipment trying to find and repair the fault in the liner. "I pulled an all-nighter," he said.

Barkla remembers one show with a scene that could have been lifted from Hitchcock's "The Birds." (It was one of the early years, when there was less sensitivity to bird welfare than there is today, he noted.)

"Within five minutes I started hearing a commotion," Barkla said. "It got louder. People were screaming and batting at the birds with umbrellas and canes." The South American birds, it turned out, were carnivorous — and very hungry. "So they started attacking each other, the other birds — and the senior citizens."

During the show's more than 50-year run, the auditorium sat empty for only two years, in 2007 and 2008, after Macy's took ownership of the downtown Minneapolis store and moved the show to the main floor.

"I was disappointed," Barkla said. "It really restricted you a lot. We weren't able to have large trees. It becomes more about houseplants."

Many fans, too, were disappointed; in 2009, the flower show was returned to the auditorium.

This year's show, with a Carnival theme, had already been planned when participants got word that the downtown Minneapolis store had been sold and would soon close.

Bachman, too, is feeling the loss.

"We're all sad to be at the finish line," he said. "How special it was to have. It was a gift to the community."

He keeps a binder full of thank-you notes from people who wrote over the years to say how much they enjoyed the show. "For us, it's all about this," he said, touching the binder.

Like a true theater veteran, Barkla is sorry the show is over but marvels at its long run.

"We rode the horse until it was time to put it in the barn," he said. "I think we did a pretty good job."

@Stribkimpalmer