On a June evening the light comes off the Hudson low and sideways, running the length of the numbered streets and making every mowed lawn in Watervliet look like it was cut for the occasion. Flood Landscaping Inc keeps those yards through the growing season — regular mowing, string-trimming around fences and foundations, beds mulched and shaped, hedges brought back to a line. City lots here are modest, which means every ragged corner shows and every clean one does too. There is real satisfaction in the last pass of the day: the stripes lying straight, the clippings blown off the walk, the gate latched behind you. By the time the streetlights come on the whole block simply looks well-kept, and nobody has to say why.