Gardner sits high and cold, and the growing season up here is short enough that no week gets wasted. CAW Landscapes reads it accordingly — mowing starts once the ground firms past mud season, and from there the schedule holds through the long green stretch around Crystal Lake and the neighborhoods above it. Trimming and edging do the quiet half of the work, drawing a clear line between lawn and walk, lawn and bed, lawn and stone. September light comes in low and gold, and the yards look their best standing in it, right before the maples begin to drop. Then it is cleanups and leaves, hauled out ahead of the first hard freeze that always seems to arrive a week early on the plateau.