Gnomes On Dope

July 22, 2010  Special to the Toronto Star  SONIA DAY

Weird trivia department: more than 26,000 garden gnomes were sold on ebay in Canada last year.

Yep, 26 THOUSAND. This statistic astonishes me, because I don’t often see gnomes in gardens, they are never featured in gardening magazines, and not one person I know would admit to owning one. So who is buying the kitschy little guys that many of us associate with Snow White?

An awful lot of Canadians, it seems. And indeed, why shouldn’t they? The fact is, gnomes have enjoyed a long and powerful connection to gardening that shows no signs of diminishing. Some of us may roll our eyes, but just surf the Internet and you quickly discover that there’s — gno end to the numbers of gnome-lovers in the world.

Consider these fascinating facts:

• Mass-market gnomes originated early in the 19th century with a German manufacturer called Philip Griebel. And they were creepy-looking, not cute. People used them to scare thieves away from barns where grain and vegetables were stored.

• Even today, Germans buy more garden gnomes than anyone else in Europe. They are also more popular with all Europeans than North Americans.

• The French have a soft spot for gnomes, too, and often group them with flowerpots on rooftops in Paris. A gnome played a role in the popular movie Amelie, starring Audrey Tautou. And a decade ago, they were celebrated in a major cultural exhibition at the Bois de Boulogne.

• The tacky image of gnomes (they are banned from the Chelsea Flower Show) is relatively new. The first Brit to import them was the decidedly upper class Sir Charles Isham. One of his terracotta purchases from Germany in 1847 survives today in a museum on his estate. It is worth more than 2 million pounds.

• Early garden gnomes looked far more raunchy than the wholesome Disneyish designs we know today. Naked male appendages were often prominently featured.

• Enthusiasts divide gnomes into three categories: worker gnomes, leisure gnomes and culture gnomes (which hold musical instruments).

• More than a million people have viewed a recent “garden gnome sighting in Argentina” on YouTube.