The ground around Elk Rapids is old lakebed sand and orchard gravel, draining so freely that one July week without rain turns an open lawn straw-pale. Evergreen Landscaping & Irrigation mows and maintains through exactly that stretch, cutting high enough that the turf shades its own roots and keeps what little it gets. Between the cherry rows and the bay bluffs the lawns take odd shapes — long, narrow, interrupted by drive and dune grass — and every one asks for its own mowing pattern. Trimming around a fence, a birch, a stone wall, then clearing every clipping off the pavement, is what turns a cut lawn into a kept one. By September the color returns on its own and the mowing goes easy again.