I know this isn’t technically a “garden question” but I am curious. How did the tradition of having a gnome in the garden get started? JM

Personally, I love garden gnomes. One of my son-in-laws gave me a garden gnome a few years ago and this gnome moves back and forth between the garden and my office. He also makes a few special appearances. Right now, he is staring over my shoulder watching me write this article and is no doubt garden gnome giddy with excitement. The history of garden gnomes is a curious tale, so let’s dig in.

The practice of placing small statues in gardens began in Rome. These weren’t gnomes but instead were statues of a Greco-Roman fertility god - Priapus.

The first instance we have of gnomes being described as having magical powers came from Paraclesus, a Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance who described them as “diminutive figures two spans in height who did not like to mix with humans.” Based on this description, I can be described as rather gnome-like on some days, except for the two-span height. A span is the distance between the tip of the thumb and the tip of the little finger.

During the Renaissance, statues of gnomes began showing up as symbols of fertility and laughter in the gardens of the wealthy. These statues fell into a category known as “grotesques.” Other characters that could be grouped together as “grotesques” would be Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, or even Frankenstein. Grotesques are a mixture of strange or almost monster like qualities with a little empathy or insight thrown in. This makes sense, but the term “grotesque” seems a little harsh to me.

By the late 16^th century gnome-like statues constructed from wood and porcelain were becoming popular in European gardens. It was in Germany that these garden statues began to be associated with traditional stories or superstitions about gnomes helping around farms or mines.

While this next bit of information is apparently contested, some suggest it was a German company who began to produce and sell the very first commercial garden dwarfs or Gartenzwerge (garden dwarfs) as they were called around 1841.

Appreciation of these gnomes began to spread across Europe. In 1847 a gentleman named Sir Charles Isham, brought 21 terracotta gnomes to Britain and placed them in the home garden of his estate known as Lamport Hall. Lamport Hall was the home of Sir Isham and his descendants until 1976 when it was turned into a center for culture and education. Only one of Sir Isham’s gnomes has survived and is displayed at Lamport Hall. The gnome’s nickname is Lampy and he’s apparently insured for over one million dollars since he is considered to be the oldest garden gnome in the world.

While gnomes continued to grow in popularity, this popularity increased exponentially with the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in the 1930s. As you can imagine, movie related paraphernalia of the Seven Dwarfs brought gnomes into the mainstream. With the arrival of World War 2, production of garden gnomes diminished as manufacturers had different priorities.

Flash forward to the 1970s and we begin to see the creation and production of a variety of humorous gnomes. In the 1990s (I guess I missed this somehow) it was apparently a fun prank to abscond with someone’s garden gnome and then send the owner photos of the gnome in a different location before ultimately returning it to its original owner. To some degree this reminds me of the Flat Stanley escapades many of us participated in with our kids and their schools.

The original garden gnomes were typically males with beards usually wearing red hats and holding or smoking a pipe. Today, they are often seen participating in leisurely activities such as fishing or sleeping. The original gnomes were pretty big, ranging in height from one to two feet tall. However, gnomes of today can be found in much smaller sizes such as the one looking over my shoulder who is probably only 4 inches tall. In 2008 it was estimated that there were over 25 million garden homes in Germany.

As is true of many things in our world, there was a period of time when garden gnomes were surrounded with controversy and were banned from a very prestigious flower show called the Chelsea Flower Show in the United Kingdom. This flower show continues today and bills itself as the world’s greatest flower show. Gnomes were banned because the organizers said gnomes detracted from the garden.

In response, gnome enthusiasts (I would like to meet a gnome enthusiast) accused the flower show of snobbery since garden gnomes were quite popular in the gardens of the working class. Ultimately, the ban of garden gnomes in the show was lifted in 2013 as part of the show’s 100^th anniversary celebration.

So, if you are open to inviting a little fun and whimsy into your garden, perhaps a garden gnome is just the solution you have been looking for. See you in the garden!

You can get answers to all your gardening questions by calling the Tulsa Master Gardeners Help Line at 918-746-3701, dropping by our Diagnostic Center at 4116 E. 15th Street, or by emailing us at mg@tulsamastergardeners.org.

Photo courtesy: Pixabay