February is the honest month for trees. With the leaves gone, every crossed branch and dead leader hanging over the driveways off Peninsula Boulevard is plain to see, and that is when W&L Tree Services & Landscaping LLC does its pruning — shaping maples and oaks while they sleep, cutting out deadwood, taking down what can't be saved, grinding stumps below grade. Thaw days in this part of Nassau County are short and bright, the ground still firm enough to work without tearing a lawn apart. Come spring the same hands turn to the ground itself: mowing, trimming, mulch, cleanups, brush and debris hauled away. A tree pruned right never announces itself — it just lets more light down onto the grass in May, which was the whole idea.