A garden gnome is a very small man making a very large claim about the property.
The house may belong to you. You may have signed documents. Nevertheless, he has arrived with a wheelbarrow, and he seems to know where everything goes.
I respect that.
There is a particular sort of beautiful garden in which I would feel obliged to lower my voice. Pale gravel. One extremely deliberate tree. A bench positioned for the contemplation of a rectangle. You can imagine the weeds receiving a firm letter before they even consider germinating.
Then somebody puts a gnome beside the drainpipe.
Suddenly the garden has a witness.
He knows about the rectangle. He has an opinion about the rectangle. His opinion is that a mushroom would improve it.
The usual objection, I think, is that he is ridiculous. This seems a peculiar charge to bring against a man in a red hat who has chosen to live in a flowerbed. He has made his position quite clear. It would be unfair to purchase him and expect restraint.
What I like is his commitment to an activity for which he is wholly unequipped.
Consider the fishing gnome. He has been placed beside a bowl containing three inches of rainwater and a leaf. He is wearing shoes unsuitable for the conditions. His fishing line is painted onto the air. Still, he attends to his work with an expression of immense professional satisfaction.
You could move him beside an actual pond. You could improve his prospects considerably.
He would have exactly the same face.
This is either wisdom or a manufacturing limitation. I am willing to leave the matter open.
The sleeping gnome is more direct. He has brought no tools. He has offered no explanation. He is lying across a toadstool, apparently confident that someone else will deal with the guttering.
Of all the available ornaments, he strikes me as the one least likely to join a neighbourhood committee.
The gnome with the lantern is different. Give him a place beside the front path and he immediately becomes management. People are arriving late. The gate has been left open. Somewhere in the begonias, an incident is developing.
His lantern does not light up. This has never diminished his authority.
I can see the appeal of a tasteful pot. I am susceptible to a lovely pot. Give me a deep green glaze and a slightly uneven rim, and I will entertain a price that ought to include the plant, the soil, and a small share in the nursery.
But a pot cannot look faintly disappointed in a delivery driver.
Sometimes a garden needs that.
There are limits. An entire regiment of gnomes changes the atmosphere. One little fellow beneath a fern suggests whimsy. Forty facing the kitchen window suggest that the household has failed to honour an agreement.
They should be allowed to congregate in small numbers, with somewhere for the eye to escape. Three is a conversation. Seven is a meeting. By twelve, somebody needs to explain why they all have shovels.
I would also be careful with placement. A gnome half hidden in the ivy gives a person the pleasure of discovering him. A gnome directly outside the bedroom window offers a rather more demanding relationship.
The ideal location, to my mind, is beside something that has gone slightly wrong.
A patch where the grass refuses to grow. The stump of a shrub that exceeded its brief. A little dip in the border where the paving stones never quite meet. Put him there with his tiny spade. Let him survey the situation.
You now have a site foreman.
If anyone asks about the unfinished corner, you can gesture towards him. He has been looking into it. There are complications. The mushroom people have raised objections.
By spring, perhaps, a few plants will have spread into the bare patch. A trailing stem will catch on his hat. His boots will disappear beneath the leaves, and the awkward corner will begin to look as though it happened on purpose.
The gnome will take credit.
He has the wheelbarrow.
The end