For Felon, Mother Nature vs. Father Time

Roses, petunias and sunflowers line fences topped with barbed wire at Rockingham Correction Center. Morning glories meander up a seven-foot trellis. Plants hang in pots in the prison’s mess hall.

The place looks like a college campus, thanks to inmate Kenneth Hankins, green thumb extraordinaire.

Every day from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., Hankins toils over his plants. When he’s not, he’s reading horticulture textbooks. Ask him about any of his plants and he can expound on them right down to their Latin derivatives.

“That kid went crazy with it,” said Scott Wray, prison program coordinator, noting that Hankins had taken five horticulture classes. “He could go into business for himself in a minute once he gets out.”

Hankins, 38, is serving 25 years for larceny as a habitual felon and was sentenced to an extra year for escape, Wray said. He’s scheduled for release in November, 1998.

“I ran with carnivals for 20 years, injected heroin every day for 10 years,” Hankins said. “I’ve had enough pain. It’s time to take advantage of opportunities, even in this place.”

His plants are his therapy.

“I got a lot on my mind. I got three daughters I let down. It eases the tension. And staying busy helps me get out of depression,” Hankins said. “All I got is time.”

Hankins’ initial flower stock came from his classes. He germinates his own seeds and even mails packages of them to inmates at four other state prisons.

“They took a habitual felon and made a blooming idiot out of me,” Hankins said with a laugh.

So how much is all this costing the prison? Exactly $28 for potting soil.

Prison administrators said it’s a good investment. The greenery impresses visitors and provides inmates relief from tension and monotony, they said.

Prison officials worried when Hankins proposed sprucing up the prison with flowers. They thought flower beds might make good hiding places for guns and other contraband.

But now, Hankins’ fellow inmates are proud of the greenery.

“The worst we’ve had is somebody growing marijuana out there, but the inmates reported it because they don’t want to lose it,” Wray said.