Chihuly at the Missouri Botanical Garden

As if the Missouri Botanical Garden weren't breathtaking and astonishing enough at every sensory level, they added an art glass instalation by the arttist Dale Chihuly. It is practically visual overload. It has been here since April 30 and leaves October 31.

We went last night which was only the second Monday evening open. Throughout the summer the garden has been open on days and Thursday evenings. All the glass installations were illuminated dramatically. The glass sculptures took on various organic forms and blended into the various gardens in which they were placed.

There were two of his tentacle-like chandeliers-one at the entrance in colors of cobalt, aqua, and white;one suspended under the foot bridge into the Japanese Garden over the lake, it was all firey shades of red, which reflected in the waters of the lake underneath. The gates into the rose garden were also adorned with bright yellow tentacles and the Garden is featuring a new rose hybrid named for Dale Chihuly (it is a flower with yellow centers which bleed to deep rose at the end of the petals.

There were onion shaped floats in all the many lilly ponds. They were in all colors, and some metalic, and some marbelized. In the Climatron (which is a geodesic dome that houses the rainforest garden) the glass looked like gorgeous flowers from outerspace, ditto the desert garden.

It was a terrific evening-the weather was cool and crisp, they were playing 50's lounge music (Tony Bennett, Louis Prima, Keely Smith) in the sculpture reflecting pool area which was set up as a cafe, unfortunatley they were pouring horribe wine-I had a glass of Lagaria Pinot Grigio which tasted of vinegar and might have made a delightful salad dressing but was not a delightful cocktail. We left about 10 and went home to a cold supper. Our wonderful neighbor Linda treated our little group to this outing.