"The minute spring comes, my life becomes a lot wider," says Pilar Pobil. The minute spring comes, her living space expands.
Pobil's home in Salt Lake's Avenues is 100 years old. She and her husband, Walter Smith, bought the home in 1960 and began, gradually, to remodel. They added a patio off the front porch and turned the back yard into an outdoor room, or actually a series of rooms and conversation areas. The space is made even more homey by the mirrors and paintings Pobil hangs on her fences and on the outside of the house.
Pobil is an artist. Some of the paintings in her yard are left from her annual outdoor art show. They will be taken in before winter. Others are made of clay. "They will stay outside until they rot," she says. The mirrors stay out all year, as well.
"If you have a corner that doesn't have blooms, hang a mirror," she advises. It will reflect the flowers you do have.
She realizes that not everyone can decorate their yards quite so boldly. "I have a wonderful thing in liking to paint," she admits. There are virtually no dull areas in her garden.
Pobil has painted pipes and conduits to look like colorful snakes. When some of her vines were lost to last winter's heavy snow, she painted a watching eye on the newly revealed wooden arbor.
Pobil makes her own fountains and right now she has four, small ones made of found objects — an old foot bath, some flowerpots turned end to end.
Her garden is ripe with details: mosaic-toped tables, a variety of chairs, stained glass. At far end of the yard, two sheds have been painted terra cotta, with purple doors and blue trim. One of these is her studio.
"My theory of gardening is benign neglect," she says. "It always needs weeding." She adds, "I have a sprinkler, but it is very relaxing to water by hand."
She cooks inside but eats outside every night, turning up the music, lingering over her meal.
Pobil's main outdoor table is the one just outside the kitchen window. It's a picnic table covered in outdoor carpet, the edges sculpted in uneven loops. "You can brush it off or hose it off," she says, with a shrug.
The place has a magic glow at night, she says, and she points out the strings of colored lights hanging in the branches.
"I always feel so sorry when fall comes," she notes. Even if, right now, the cool weather seems a long time off.
There's a ceiling fan in Pobil's arbor. But most of the cooling comes from her trees and vines. "This is a cool garden because of vegetation," she says. She has tested it with a thermometer. The air outside her fence can be 10 degrees hotter than the air inside her fence.
The fountains help cool the air as well. And the sound of running water blends well with the sounds of the city, which is just beyond her fence, but somehow seems far away.
E-mail: susan@desnews.com