Spring reaches North Caldwell a beat behind the valley — up on the First Watchung ridge the oaks hold out, and the grass beneath them waits for permission. Czupak Lawn and Landscape LLC starts the moment it comes: the cleanup that pulls a winter's worth of twigs and grit off the lawn, the first cut, the edges recut along the borough's curving drives. After that it is weekly mowing and trimming, beds weeded and mulched, borders kept true against the stone walls that run through half the yards up here. Big shaded lots make for slow, careful work and a lawn that looks deliberate rather than merely cut. By June the ridge is all green ceiling and clean ground.