He is not a gardener

Tom Owens, my brother, is not a gardener. He is a nature lover and he often hikes the trails in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains near his home in Altadena  -- which is to say, he enjoys the flowers and trees and takes delight in noticing small changes on his favorite walks -- a falling leaf, a broken branch, a scuttling beetle, a quiet assembly of small ferns underneath a log.

Tom does no gardening. He pays a lawn service to come to his property every week and take care of the basics. His hands never touch the trowel and rake and shovel, nor pruners, loppers, wheelbarrow, nor weedeater or noisy gas-powered lawnmower. He may actually own a rake or shovel, tucked behing the kayak and the office storage boxes in his garage  -- but he doesn't use those tools.

In the spring-time he has no urge nor obession to turn the earth and get his hands in it. He does not dream of seed catalogs, or cruise the plant nurseries looking for the perfect dogwood tree to grace his front lawn.

Tom is not like me, because I am a gardener, both professional and amateur, and it may have started when I was ten-years-old and my mother had me rake leaves over the peonies by the back fence. We did that every year in late October, after the peonies had died back. Mom said to cover them with leaves so they would stay frozen all winter -- not harmful for them to freeze, she explained, but not good if they froze, and thawed and froze and thawed again -- better to put the leaf blanket on and tuck them in for the winter.

I think Mom gave me that job because I seemed to take an interest in it.

Anyway, i talked to Tom about this yesterday  -- he was planning to take an evening hike in Eaton Canyon with a friend, while I was scheming about wheelbarrows and studying a Botany text.