Macy’s Unveils a Out of this World Flower Show

Every year Macy’s welcomes Spring with the annual Flower Show—a magnificent themed floral extravaganza that takes place in three flagship stores across the country. This spring, Macy’s Herald Square in New York City, Macy’s State Street in Chicago and Macy’s Union Square in San Francisco celebrate a more than 70-year floral tradition with Journey to Paradisios. 

Journey to Paradisios, is a space-inspired floral fantasy featuring more than 5,000 types of plants, trees and flowers depicting various outer space themes. Transporting visitors into a multi-dimensional world of space, adventure and discovery through flowers and eccentrically landscaped gardens, Journey to Paradisios celebrates the wonder and mystery of the cosmos.

Rick Pomer, the show’s creative director, said the creative group started planning for the show as soon as last year’s ended. It took about three months to formulate and fully develop the idea before they started planning what plants would go where and the characters who would feature throughout.

Peter Gustafson, who works for Earth Gardens (which partners with Macy’s to design and put on the flower show) and acts as the flower show’s showrunner said  “We know over the years that some plants will bloom very quickly, some will bloom very slowly. So we have to orchestrate it in such a way that they’re all timed for starting when the show actually starts.”

The plants are brought in from as far as Oregon. Constant upkeep is needed for the show to look as good from the first day opened to the last day. The process features a form of crews of about six people working five to six hours every night to water plants and pluck damaged flowers. The cherry trees, which stand about 15-feet high and weigh several hundred pounds each, need to be replaced completely halfway through the show.

Nearly two million people are expected to pass through the store during the two-week run.