The Lawn Butcher

About The Lawn Butcher

The name is a joke with something serious inside it: a dull edge tears a blade of grass and a sharp one severs it, and the difference shows up three days later in the color of the lawn. The Lawn Butcher works from that fact — mowing at the right height, edging the drive and the walk, running the string trimmer around posts, mailbox and hedge line until the property has an outline. Lakeland grew up around rail yards and packinghouses, and the old yard near downtown is a public park now, so this is a town that understands ground answering to whoever bothers to work it. In February, when the morning wants a jacket and the bahia sits straw-gold and slow, the job is mostly shape and cleanup; by May it turns into a footrace. Either way the cut comes out clean, and clean is the entire trade.