By late April the ground around Jefferson County has gone soft and black, the kind of soil that takes a spade without argument. Busenbark Landscaping works the yards of Mount Vernon in that window, cutting the first flush of green while the afternoon heat stacks thunderheads out west over the section roads. A yard kept up in spring pays it back all summer: even color, straight lines at the drive, no rough spots left for July. They stay after the trimming where a mower can't reach — along foundations, fence posts, the mailbox pole. It is plain work, and it shows from the street.