North of the Santa Monica Mountains, the San Fernando Valley side of Los Angeles runs hotter than the coast, and by August the afternoons along Ventura Boulevard can shimmer well past ninety degrees. Sherman Oaks Landscaping carries the name of one of the Valley's own neighborhoods and looks after lawns throughout Los Angeles, where summer is the hardest test a yard faces. Grass in that heat does better with a considered cut than a scalping, and with edges trimmed and clippings cleared the yard reads cool and orderly even at noon. When the evening breeze finally slips down through the Sepulveda Pass, a well-tended lawn is the first place the day's heat seems to let go. Keeping a Valley yard green through a long dry summer is a point of real pride.