On Hughes Street the gingerbread porches throw long scalloped shadows by six o'clock, and the little front lawns beneath them are measured in feet, not acres. A.L.C Hardscaping LLC keeps those lawns cut, edged and trimmed right to the brick sidewalk, where the grass wants to creep and the salt air keeps everything low. Cape May grows on thin soil, so the work is patient — feeding what the wind has worn out, overseeding the bare patches, raking the beds down when the season turns. There is real satisfaction in a Victorian dooryard mowed square: a green rectangle that sets off all that white scrollwork like a mat under a picture. In autumn they clear the leaves off those narrow lots so the town's oldest streets go into winter tidy.