If Macy's and Bachman's really loved us, they'd provide a masseuse at the exit to this year's annual flower show, what with all the stiff necks prompted by the skyscraping extravaganza that opens Sunday.
Instead, we'll have to accept that they're saying it with flowers -- specifically, Towers of Flowers, the title of this year's show, a partnership between the department store and the gardening company that is in its 47th year.
"Vertical gardening is the latest trend that's making its way here from Europe," said Dale Bachman, CEO of Bachman's. On a literal level, that means blooming plants and cut flowers festooning all manner of towers built for the show, from the Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa and an Italian campanile to a Spanish battlement, a brilliant mosaic tower and a mirrored spire. But many of the plants themselves are all about height, such as columnar pine, spiral juniper and flowering dogwood. New this year is Phaius tankervilliae, also known as "nun's orchid," which blooms on a flower spike up to 4 feet tall, Bachman said.
And for those plants that aspire to height, there is the Wally.
A bank of Wallys will be supporting the white orchids spilling from the walls at the exhibit's entrance. Bachman explained that a Wally is a pocket that looks like canvas but is made of recycled plastic bottles lined with a moisture barrier. The pouches, about 22 inches wide, are designed to be hung on walls, singly or in groups, letting gardeners use vertical surfaces for planting.
All things vertical, however, begin with more than 200 cubic yards of soil trucked up to Macy's eighth floor and spread horizontally to create 4,000 square feet of landscape. About 75 plant varieties then are brought in, with more than half bearing tags identifying them as hardy to Minnesota's climate. During the show's two-week run, some of the plants will be replaced once, and some twice, to preserve the show's otherworldly sense of perfection.
It is, after all, a theatrical event, said Michael Gansmoe, Macy's vice president of special productions. There are sketches to be brainstormed, sets to be built, background music to be recorded. The actors? They're the flowers -- and even they went through a tough audition. The bulb stock had be ordered by last July, and all plants must be able to tolerate the temperature and light limitations of what is essentially a black box lit with klieg lights.
Designer Jack Barkla usually works in theaters but has been doing the department store's flower show since its earliest days, when it was placed among the first-floor cosmetic counters and shoe racks. He was the one who pondered whether the towers should be iconic or inventions, settling on some of each. The mosaic tower required breaking all sorts of colorful plates, whose pieces then were plastered into the soaring walls.
