Spring reaches Montclair from the low ground first and works uphill toward the ridge over about two weeks, so the season arrives in installments. Mierop Design meets it as it comes — lawns opened up after the cold, beds cleared and edged, turf coaxed back where winter thinned it. The Van Vleck gardens a few blocks over set a high bar for what a Montclair yard can be, and a well-cut lawn with a clean bed line answers that in a plainer language. Mornings start cool and damp under the old oaks; by noon the clippings are drying gold on the driveway apron. It is unhurried work, and the result shows it — a property that looks composed rather than merely trimmed.