Belleville stands up on the bluff above the bottoms, its older streets running beneath sycamores and oaks that were set out when the brick was new. Meurer Brothers Tree Care keeps that canopy honest — pruning the big West Main shade trees, trimming limbs off slate and shingle and the wires threading the alleys, removing the trunks that have gone hollow at the base. Along Richland Creek the growth comes fast and tangled, while the orchard country east of town takes the same weather with fewer things to hide behind. Storms crossing the Mississippi arrive here with real force in spring, and the morning after belongs to cutting, chipping and hauling until a yard is passable again. Come August, when the heat sits over the Metro East like a lid, the shade on these streets is the whole payoff.