North Arlington holds on to some big old trees, not least along the long walls of Holy Cross Cemetery, and their shade decides what a lawn can do beneath them. Uncle Matty's Tree Service tends those shaded yards — mowing, edging, trimming — where grass grows thin and slow and asks for a lighter hand than an open field. September is the turn, when the first leaves come down and the clearing work begins in earnest. Beds are cleared, walks and drives edged clean, and the leaves taken off the lawn before they mat and smother what is under them. By the time the branches are bare, the ground below looks cared for, which is the whole point of it.