As I pulled on the rake last weekend during the first foray into spring cleanup, a fellow walking past the front yard said, “Futile effort.” I agreed, knowing I would have to do this again several times until the last autumn leaves and winter garbage get picked up in the neighbourhood. Even as I scooped old perennial tops, leaves and brown lawn grass into the eighth bag, the wind swirled to scatter across the yard some of what had been accumulated.

On the other hand, I can’t agree the work is without reward: the yard is an infinite source of delight and this time of year hope.

Under the debris, most of the spring-flowering tulips, daffodils and hyacinths show their impatience. They’ll continue to shoot up despite the periodic setback like the one we saw Sunday.

I fully expect the purple, orange and white crocuses in one of the front beds to be in bloom within the week. Normally, that’s the beginning of seven months here during which you can enjoy flowers, ending with violet and pink fall asters. Not bad for a northern climate.

Between March and October, barring serious deep freezes at both ends, we appreciate a constantly evolving landscape. For starters, you’ll find early pinks or violets of creeping flox, Nanking and Evans Cherry and bergenia, white candytuft, Norland apple, Northcountry Blueberry and Irish moss blossoms, deep orange of the first Dropmore Honeysuckle flowers, chartreuse cushion spurge and yellow buttercups and brilliant blue Turkish veronica.

Early to mid-summer, the garden is awash in yellow daylilies, purple salvia and clematis, pink peonies, red husker penstemon with pink flowers, blue delphinium and white sneezewort and pearly everlasting.

Perennials that include flowers, shrubs and trees form the foundation for the garden and not only provide an ongoing and changing rainbow of colours, but the foliage provides relief of its own from pale through deep greens and purples after the petals wither.

Over the past 10 years, we’ve found it impossible to pass by a nursery and have spent hours and thousands at places like Green Haven.

As if the perennials aren’t enough to leave you in awe, the air around the place hums with life. Although finches, downy woodpeckers, pine siskins, house sparrows, black-capped chickadees and red-breasted nuthatches remain year around, the arrival this week of four robins at the pond for the season’s first bath marks the start of the warmer-weather bird and insect buzz.

By late July, hummingbirds will start their frantic gorging on red bee balm and the second honeysuckle-vine blush, assuming we can control aphids.

To get a further head start, the seeds planted in the basement crawl space under a couple of fluorescent fixtures two weeks ago have already outgrown the covers set over them to keep in the moisture. Those plantings will provide another 300 or so vegetables, herbs and annual flowers to keep the wonder going into autumn.

When English poet Alexander Pope wrote 276 years ago that hope springs eternal in the breast of man, he could well have more generally observed that spring hope is eternal.