Checking out 30,000 varieties of flowering plants and trees was a good reason to brave the crowds at Macy's Flower Show. The two-week-long flower extravaganza took over the main floor of the store for two weeks and remade the center aisle into an avenue of blossoming cherry trees. Tucked amidst handbags and cosmetics, 16 specialty gardens energized the store's usual look with an all-white English garden, a desert garden, an orchid garden with hundreds of different varieties—even a Scottish highlands garden complete with heather and a fog machine.
Since 2002, Macy's has presented renowned floral designers work with the "Bouquet of the Day"—a series of changing displays in the center of the main floor. This year, the roster included designers Jane Packer, Rebecca Cole of Rebecca Cole Designs, James Francois-Pijuan of Francois-Pijuan Floral Design & Event Decor, David Beahm, Jorge Cazzorla of Celebrate Flowers, and Preston Bailey of Preston Bailey Design. Each designer brought a fresh approach to the store with towering works. Saundra Parks of the Daily Blossom also created floral pieces that changed with window displays in the 34th Street beauty arcade.
Macy's group vice president for annual and special events Robin Hall told us that a year's worth of planning goes into the show, and he has been working to add more exotic and unusual plants since he took over the job in 2002. Hall has worked with Matterhorn Nursery for three years to bring in the landscaping, which included more than a million bulbs this year.
—Mark Mavrigian
Read our Impresario Q&A with Macy's Robin Hall...
Since 2002, Macy's has presented renowned floral designers work with the "Bouquet of the Day"—a series of changing displays in the center of the main floor. This year, the roster included designers Jane Packer, Rebecca Cole of Rebecca Cole Designs, James Francois-Pijuan of Francois-Pijuan Floral Design & Event Decor, David Beahm, Jorge Cazzorla of Celebrate Flowers, and Preston Bailey of Preston Bailey Design. Each designer brought a fresh approach to the store with towering works. Saundra Parks of the Daily Blossom also created floral pieces that changed with window displays in the 34th Street beauty arcade.
Macy's group vice president for annual and special events Robin Hall told us that a year's worth of planning goes into the show, and he has been working to add more exotic and unusual plants since he took over the job in 2002. Hall has worked with Matterhorn Nursery for three years to bring in the landscaping, which included more than a million bulbs this year.
—Mark Mavrigian
Read our Impresario Q&A with Macy's Robin Hall...
For his "Bouquet of the Day" arrangement at the Macy's Flower Show, Jorge Cazzorla of Celebrate Flowers designed a base stuffed with tulips, roses, peonies, lilies, viburnum and cascading jasmine. Multicolor orbs made of roses and freesia hung from the arrangement's towering main structure, composed of branches of cherry blossoms.
For his bouquet, James Francois-Pijuan of Francois-Pijuan Floral Design & Event Decor created a grouping of three glass containers of different heights and lavished them with flowers in shades of yellow, red and orange. The interiors of the vases included coils of colored glass jewels. The piece contained cymbidium, dendrobium and James Story orchids, as well as three types of roses, gloriosas and hanging amaranthus.
Preston Bailey created a lampshade-shaped piece that rose above a base arrangement of tulips, roses, peonies and hydrangeas. The towering shade was created using fragile natural leaves that were painted green and arranged in long strands, decorated with cymbidium orchids and viburnum.
Going for an all-green look, Jane Packer—whose bouquet launched the show on April 4—used clear cubes filled with green apples and spheres of carnations and green chrysanthemums. On the top was a spray of green hydrangea and cymbidium orchids. At the base, wheat grass, hydrangea and hellebores filled out the arrangement.
