Perennial Gardens

About Perennial Gardens

Smallwood's lots sit half in and half out of the trees, so the light travels across a lawn all day and no two corners dry at the same rate. Perennial Gardens mows for that — a height that suits shade under the oaks and sun out by the road, week after week from thaw to frost. Trimming takes the grass close around foundations, mailbox posts and the little stone edges people build here, and the beds are cleared of everything the maples let go. By September the work turns to leaves, hauled off before the first wet week glues them down. What is left is a yard that looks tended, in a town where the forest is always politely trying to come back.