The morning after a late-March rain the red clay goes dark and the azaleas around Ringgold are just breaking open. Southern Yard Lawn Services LLC starts its year right about then — the season's first cuts, beds cleaned out and mulched, kudzu and honeysuckle pushed back off the fence lines, edges recut where winter blurred them. From there it turns weekly: mow, trim, edge, blow off, move on to the next. Watching a yard come out of dormancy under regular attention never really gets old. By May you can tell a kept yard from an unkept one at highway speed.