A Brasilian Garden Takes Root at Herald Square

Springtime in New York: daffodils in Central Park, cherry blossoms in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and a tropical rain forest in Macy’s. For nearly 40 years Macy’s has transformed the ground f loor of the flagship store at Herald Square into a living breathing garden each spring for the annual Macy’s Flower Show. This year, the show moves outside onto Broadway Plaza i n what may be the most immersive floral experience Macy’s talented designers have ever dared to dream up.

“This year the show is different than it’s been in past years,” says Robin Hall, the executive producer of the Macy’s Flower Show. “We’re out on the street, and we’re really pleased to present the show in this way — it’s exciting for my team. We’re excited to bring it all outside to the people, much more like the parade, much more public this way.” The show will be contained i nside a massive tent that was built in the Macy’s Parade Studio in New Jersey and then installed in Broadway Plaza offering Hall’s team the chance to truly transform a blank canvas into a tropical wonderland.

And tropical it is. This year’s theme, Brasil: Gardens in Paradise, will feature dozens of elements including a jungle waterfall, a greenhouse within the tent, and a South American-style cityscape, complete with rooftop gardens. It will also be wildly lush and colorful and incorporate thousands upon thousands of flowers in every hue of the rainbow. The different gardens in the show represent different regions of Brasil. “There’s blue sky and green jungle, waterfalls and all sorts of other features that represent the Amazon — that’s the single biggest garden in the show,” Hall explained. “Then there’s a plaza, tiles and fountains for the urban sections. There’s a little bit of Rio and Brasilia is also represented, and jungle to look at as well as Havana-style architecture. It’s all the elements in Brasil from the rural and wild to sophisticated modern cities.”

Hall says he’s been amazed by the sheer variety of the plants in this year’s show “With tropicals, there’s so much texture so many shades, there must be 500 shades of green in the show,” he says.

In keeping with the tropical theme, a giant toucan topiary presides over it all as the mascot for the show. Hall explained that each year there’s some sort of topiary structure that serves as the centerpiece for the show. In the past, they’ve constructed giant fish, pink flamingos and a very memorable giraffe. T his year ’s toucan is “covered with magnolia leaves that are almost black and then the rest, the beak and eyes, are made out of wonderful f lowers, hand-dyed Brasilian button flowers,” Hall says. Macy’s hosts flower shows in flagship stores around the country each year, at Center City in Philadelphia, State Street in Chicago, Downtown Minneapolis and Union Square in San Francisco and there will be a toucan in each store.

“Essentially they each paint their own, but the bones are the same,” says Hall. “They’re inter preted differently and none are exactly the same.” As executive producer, he spends a week prior to the show touring each city and looking over their designs. Each Macy’s works with a different set of floral designers and greenhouses to pull their shows together, and while they work off the same themes each year, there’s glorious variety in the designs. Hall then tours again while the shows are running to see all the hard work that goes into each one in full bloom.

With this year’s set-up, the New York team ha s been working to anticipate all the new dynamics of working with an outdoor show, from constructing it to maintaining the gardens inside. In previous years the show was held on the main floor at Herald Square, which presented its own design challenges, which the team had worked out masterfully over the years. “We had a certain system for planting,” Hall explains. “We’d create these ridges and areas to plant, because you can’t plant the floor. In the past we’d have to plant almost sideways, so that flowers were working with the space and displays. This year it’s like real life, you’re looking down at the plants, just like nature.” In addition to planning for the planting, which is handled by landscapers and floral designers, they’ve been hard at work designing the framework for the show, including lighting and power, and constructing a huge, gushing waterfall for the jungle.

The f lower show stays up for two weeks, and, since it’s composed mostly of living plants and flowers, it changes over time. F lowers bloom more and more exuberantly, leaves stretch and grow, and ultimately, some plants fade or die. Keeping everything fresh and bright is half the battle, creating a tremendous amount of work each night maintaining the plants. Halfway through each year they do a major overhaul, and Hall says that as many as 30 percent of the plants in the show are replaced during the two weeks it runs.

Hall also works on the Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks and the Thanksgiving Day Parade, but he says that the Flower Show holds a special place for him. “In its own way the flower show is smaller in scale than fireworks, but it’s one of the most labor intensive things we do,” he says.

“The parade is a few hours, fireworks just an hour, but this goes on for two weeks, and there’s great joy in that for all of us. There’s a tremendous amount of excitement from the public, and I can walk through the show with everyone and hear comments, see their reactions, so it’s exciting in that respect. There’s a tremendous amount of emotional satisfaction.”

By the time he gets the chance to s t rol l through the show w ith other spectators, Hall will have truly earned that satisfaction. The effort involved in putting it together has been immense. “Building anything i n the middle of the street in New York is a challenge,” Hall says. He looks forward to attracting tourists and day trippers to the jungle he’s building on Broadway Plaza, as well as New York natives. “The show is a huge tourist attraction,” he says. “This is the face of New York to them, and we love to present that to people who are not familiar with the city. We love to excite jaded New Yorkers as well.”