Flower Child Has Critical Eye
Christopher Hawkins doesn’t have time to smell the roses. He’s too busy with his own flower of choice.
Hawkins is a dahlia man.
He’s been growing the showy, colorful flowers for seven years, and he’s judged them at national and international shows for five years.
At the ripe age of 12, Hawkins, who will be inspecting blooms at today’s Silver Lake Mall dahlia show, could be one of the youngest dahlia judges in the United States.
Bill McClaren, senior judge and national research chairman for the American Dahlia Association, considers the sixth-grader one of the best evaluators he’s ever seen.
“He’s a bright young man who loves dahlias. He has tremendous visual ability,” McClaren said. “He can see the individual parts and the total part of the flower and tie those together. … Many people can do one or the other, but not both.”
Hawkins’ judging career began after his grandmother, Delsie Marienau, a master gardener and award-winning flower grower herself, enrolled him and his siblings into a Spokane 4-H club associated with the Inland Empire Dahlia Association. The Hawkins children eventually joined their grandmother in McClaren’s judging class at Kalispell, Mont.
“I thought he was paying attention, but he looked a little bored,” McClaren recalled. “Then he came up and said he was a little worried about the test.”
Young Hawkins could print at the time but worried that he couldn’t jot down his answers fast enough.
McClaren allowed him to take the test orally.
“His first answer was great, as was every other,” McClaren said. “I learned a lot about dahlias that day.”
Later, at a Vancouver, British Columbia, show, McClaren paired up then 7-year-old Hawkins with 92-year-old distinguished Canadian judge Ernie Henderson.
“Ernie said he (Hawkins) was the best he’d ever worked with,” McClaren said, adding that the response has remained consistent wherever Hawkins has judged, including the Spokane Interstate Fair.
“I’ve never received a judge’s evaluation on him that wasn’t outstanding.”
A walk with the Washington Elementary straight-A student through his hillside garden near Sandpoint can be a floral learning experience as he cites names and explains characteristics of numerous variations of the flower that had its roots in Mexico.
Lots of horse manure gathered from the family corral, along with grass clippings and mulch, has enriched the sandy soil and provided an ideal bed for his colorful array of flowers.
Strolling through the assortment of more than 100 thriving plants with blooms ranging from two to 12 inches in diameter and deep green stems stretching to five feet tall, the young judge reveals why one variety is called a “miniature ball” (because its petals look like ice cream cones), or why another is termed a “colorette” (because of its layered petals).
“You need to know the characteristics of each kind,” he explained. “You want one pair of leaves on the stem. … It will get disqualified if it has a ‘blown center.’ … If it has a green center, that means it’s too young. … If it’s really, really close, you look at the stems,” he said. “A crooked stem will make the difference.”
In addition to judging, Hawkins is investigating the possibility of developing his own hybrids.
Christopher’s success and interest in the dahlia world pleases his grandmother, who enjoys sharing a floral passion dating back to her own grandmother’s garden in Iowa.
“It’s just wonderful to see someone who really cares enough to learn it and go on with it,” Marienau said. “He raises just as good of dahlias as I do.”