On the flat bottom ground at Granite City there is nothing standing between July and a front porch except the trees, which is why the big cottonwoods and maples around Wilson Park earn their keep. Finazzo's Tree Service LLC works to keep them worth having: pruning for structure while a tree is young, trimming long limbs before they get heavy over a roof, taking out the ones that have hollowed at the base. Storms cross the river here with the whole valley for a runway, and the cleanup afterward is plain labor — the yard opened up, the wood cut and stacked, the lawn left flat. Out toward Horseshoe Lake the cottonwoods grow fast and fail fast, and it pays to look up now and then. Granite City, Madison, Mitchell, Pontoon Beach and Collinsville make up the working map.