The county line runs through the middle of Ardmore, which is the practical reason we work on both sides of it.

Ardmore sits on the county line. Part of it is Lower Merion Township in Montgomery County, part is Haverford Township in Delaware County, and zip 19003 covers both. Draw a line down a street there and the houses on one side file their permits in one township and the houses opposite file in another, while the yards behind them have the same soil, the same slope and the same hundred-year-old trees. That is why the near edge of Delaware County has been part of this route from the start: it is not a new service area, it is the other half of streets we already work on.

The Main Line corridor carries straight on across the line. Haverford, Havertown, Bryn Mawr and the townships along Lancaster Avenue were built in the same decades, from much the same stone, on much the same terrain — long rear gardens, mature canopy, front walks laid before anyone thought hard about a base, and grade that moves water toward the house rather than away from it. The problems arrive in the same order they do a mile east: a walk that has sunk at the joints, a wall leaning out at the top, beds that have outgrown the front of the house, and leaves in quantity every fall.

Further into Delaware County the drive gets long, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. Hardscape and design work travels better than a weekly lawn route does, because a patio is one crew on site for a stretch of days while mowing has to come back every week. So the near edge — Haverford Township and the Main Line side of the county — is where the route reaches without stretching. Beyond that, send the address and we will give you a straight answer instead of a maybe. We do not take work inside Philadelphia city limits.