Late May on Hooker Avenue: the big shade trees close over the street, lilacs come and go inside a week, and the lawns underneath grow in that soft, hurried, springtime way. Mercado's Landscaping LLC keeps them even — weekly mowing, careful trimming along walks and foundations, hedges shaped, beds weeded and freshly mulched, cleanups at both ends of the year. Shade grass is finicky; it wants a taller cut and a sharper blade, and it tells you immediately when it does not get them. Done properly, a yard sits under those old trees looking like it belongs there. That is what the route is for.