Suddenly "spectacular" hardly seems adequate.

Rebecca Droke, Post-Gazette photos "Amber Catttails" in the Serpentine Room. Click photo for larger image. 'Chihuly at Phipps' Where: Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, 1 Schenley Park Drive, Oakland. When: Through Nov. 11; daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings from 7 to 10 p.m. Tickets: Daytime admission is $12.50, $11.50 for seniors 62 and over and students with I.D., $7.50 for children 2 to 18, and free to Phipps members and to children under 2. Evening admission is $15 for all ages and $7.50 for members. Information: 412-622-6914 or online at www.phipps.conservatory.org.

Astonishing? Stunning? Thrilling? Theatrical?

It's all that.

But the word that came to mind over and over again wasn't one I anticipated. "Chihuly at Phipps" is simply sublime, a glorious realization of a grand garden dream.

Of course, there's nothing simple about it. Phipps Conservatory is a labyrinthine historic glasshouse with many rooms that invite exploration and discovery. Like every great garden, Phipps always leaves you wondering what's around the bend, beyond the wall, inside the next room.

Glass artist Dale Chihuly's work is equally expansive, with many series of objects developed over decades. Putting them together was nearly a five-year collaboration among glass people and garden people working on opposite ends of the country.

The two teams embraced the complexity of both the glass objects and the glass building, presenting a sequence of 20 installations that match the plant material if not literally leaf for leaf, then certainly gasp for gasp in their effect upon the viewer. Yet the glass and the plants do not fight each other for dominance. Each knows when to hold forth and when to give way in a performance marked by grandiosity and bravura, subtlety and ambiguity. The relationship between glass and plant material is extraordinary and ever-changing but always complementary, whether the glass is hidden among the plants or rising up out of them in great towers and chandeliers of ice or flame.

Dale Chihuly in the East Room with the Cobalt Fiori installation. Click photo for larger image.

The Chihuly brigade is well practiced; this is its eighth temporary installation in a conservatory. Led by Tom Lind and Parks Anderson, they worked with Phipps exhibit designer Michele McCann and horticulture director Karen Daubmann to coordinate glass and plants in a conservatory accustomed to staging seasonal displays. That offered Chihuly more opportunity to showcase his work among plants chosen specifically for this exhibit.

The result is that of all the garden installations (the previous seven can be viewed on the artist's comprehensive Web site, www.dalechihuly.com), the Phipps show offers far and away the best integration of glass and plant material to date.

The symbiosis begins at the beginning, in the center of the Palm Court, where a 15-foot blue-citron tower is a breathtaking opener. In the surrounding beds, the new leaves of 'Moonlight' philodendron are just beginning to unfurl in spirals that echo the curlicues and colors of glass in the tower, assembled from hundreds of individual pieces.

While some other conservatories have displayed the Macchia -- large shell-like vessels of intense and variegated color -- on stands among an assortment of potted plants, at Phipps they rise up out of ruffled, fan-shaped Licuala palms in the center of the Sunken Garden. The palms are an inspired choice for the bold Macchia, matching them in scale and drama but contrasting in texture. The room's architecture is equally robust, thanks to the late Ralph Griswold, with geometric brick fountains spilling over into the central trough.

A word about the multi-sensory nature of this experience: The visual delights are accompanied by fleeting wafts of floral fragrance and the sounds of water trickling from fountains and rushing over rocks, of birds high in the canopy of the Palm Court. You may have to remind yourself to caress the glass only with your eyes, because it begs to be touched.

Again and again, Chihuly's glass seems frozen in the act of its making. More than most mediums, it bears witness to its creation, to the gaffer's duet with the twirling molten mass taking form at the other end of the pipe. It looks organic and alive, and seems to embody and express the energy it took to make it.

	The Macchia Forest surrounded by ruffled fan palms and Swiss cheese plants in the Sunken Garden. Click photo for larger image.

It would be a mistake to dismiss Chihuly's work as sheer showmanship and legerdemain. There's a lot of content in this fantastic, dreamlike, poetic exhibit, both in Chihuly's intent and in what the viewer might bring to it.

There is a creation story behind all of his marvelously inventive forms; some stories are included in the free exhibit guide, which presents the right amount and kind of information to inform the tour. (For those wanting more, books and videos are available in Phipps' shop.)

But the guide errs on one installation, stating that the Rose Crystal Tower in the Outdoor Garden is made of glass. In fact, the hollow crystals were cast from chunks of glass in an experimental plastic Chihuly has dubbed polyvitro, developed in part for unprotected outdoor locations.

Other Chihuly forms in the Phipps show include Reeds, Paintbrushes, Cattails, Fiori (flowers of various shapes), Persians (exotic shapes and patterns), Niijima floats (large glass balls) and Herons.

The long necks of the blue herons rose out of a lily pond at London's Kew Gardens. Here they inhabit the romantic landscape of the East Room, where silver-foliage plants flank a meandering stream and present a monochromatic palette for the cobalt glass.

A delight by day, "Chihuly at Phipps" at night can be a deeply moving aesthetic and spiritual experience. At least it was one evening this week when I wandered through the rooms alone, only occasionally bumping into a photographer or Phipps staffer. The Sunken Garden room, with its peaked glass ceiling studded with twinkling lights, felt like a crystal cathedral, and its long line of luminescent Macchia glowed in their spotlights, like jewels in a vitrine.

In the Orchid Room the lights that illuminate Chihuly's Ikebana -- surreally large glass vases holding glass flowers -- also accentuate the structure of the tropical trees and the Spanish moss that drapes them. It feels like old Florida; at any moment I half expected "The Yearling" author Marjorie Rawlings, who operated orange groves there 60 years ago, to step out of the shadows and light a smudge pot.

Celadon and Royal Purple Gilded Fiori in the Tropical Fruit and Spice Room. Click photo for larger image.

In the new Tropical Forest room, neon Tumbleweeds hang high above its hillside landscape and are reflected several times over in the glass wall, like fireworks exploding just outside the room.

In the Desert Room, a large glowing glass star heralds your arrival. It feels like a miracle, like seeing the sun at midnight, and brought back memories of an incredibly swift moonrise 20 years ago in the Taos desert.

Most visits won't be so solitary, but timed ticketing should help keep the crowds in check; visiting Phipps is a diminished experience when you feel like you're on a floral amusement park ride.

Parking on part of Phipps' front lawn, where a Geoblock system has been newly installed, is an unfortunate intrusion on a historic landscape, but it will be used only during peak visitation and at other times should seamlessly blend into the rest of the lawn. It won't be available until sometime in July, after its new grass takes root within the recycled plastic Geoblocks, so plan for limited parking availability until then.

It should go without saying: "Chihuly at Phipps" is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Kudos to all involved in its appearance.