The Value of a Gnome in the Greenhouse

I found the secret to a successful greenhouse is to have a gnome on duty. Here’s where they come from.

Greenie on his perch in the greenhouse

When I built my greenhouse about 10 years ago, my wife gave me a plaster gnome she bought at the Dollar Store. “For good luck,” she told me.

I stuck “Greenie” on a perch above one of the side vent windows midway down the greenhouse and didn’t think much about him until the following autumn when nearly all of the winter seedlings on the side of the greenhouse opposite Greenie were repeatedly plundered by a mysterious nighttime invader.

Despite my best efforts to protect the baby plants – plastic dome covers, screen, floating row cover, sonic weapons, laser beams, you name it – each morning I’d come to open the greenhouse doors and find another tray of young seedlings tossed about, their pots knocked over and emptied of soil. Frustrated, I decided to move the entire wall of seedlings to the opposite side of the greenhouse where Greenie sat in the window above the bench with the pots, soil, seeds and supplies.

It took a bit of work to reorganize everything, but when I left the greenhouse, all the plants had been moved to Greenie’s side and all the tools and equipment to the other. I had no reason to think this would change anything, but I hoped for the best as I closed the doors for the night.

The next morning I opened the greenhouse to find… nothing unusual. All the plants were fine. Everything was right where I had put it the day before. This went on for days at first, then weeks and months. Somehow plants on one side of the greenhouse were fine, but attacked on the other.

Naturally, I concluded that the gnome on his perch above the plants protected them at night. What else could it be? So, I decided to research garden gnomes and see what the deal was. Where did their power come from? Why gardens? And what’s with the pointy hats?

The Origins of Garden Gnomes

Gnomes are little magic people who come to us from ancient Greece and Rome via Northern Europe. The word “gnome” comes from the Greek “gnosis” which means “knowledge of the mystical or magical” – in this case the mysteries of the earth, plants and growing things.

Back in the Ancient world they placed small statues of Priapus, the god who protected livestock, fruit plants and gardens, in their own gardens to ward off pests and diseases. Over time, the Germans morphed Priapus into one of their magical woodland beings. By the mid-1600s Swiss, Austrian, and Germans were placing small statues called Gartenzwerge (garden dwarves) in their own yards and gardens to protect them and make them abundant. Unlike the shirtless, short-tunic wearing Priapus, the Gartenzwerge were bearded figures wearing German clothes and a pointy hat commonly worn by Eastern-educated professors in medieval times.

A Garden Gnome Explosion

Gartenzwerge were quite popular in northern Europe in the mid 1800’s when English landowner and garden-designer Sir Charles Isham brought 21 of the figurines back from Germany to his estate Lamport Hall in Northhampton setting off the British garden gnome craze.

The popularity of garden gnomes declined after WWI until Walt Disney Productions released Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1937. Mass manufacturing reduced the cost of the figurines to the point that common people could afford them and the American public snapped up their own garden gnomes for the next several years.

Garden gnome interest came and went over the decades, gaining popularity in the 1970s with humorous gnomes, and again in the 1990s with “traveling gnomes” where people would “kidnap” the gnome and send the owner photos of it in various places before returning it. That trend peaked in the 2000’s Travelocity’s Roaming Gnome campaign.

More recently there’s been another gnome resurgence that shares something with the original Priapus-in-the-garden statues, but it may just be legend. You can decide for yourself.

A Gnome in the Greenhouse

While Greenie’s never been kidnapped or spent any time in the garden per se (technically the greenhouse is in the garden), he has presided over nearly a decade of greenhouse growing.

Greenie making sure the plants are safe and happy

As far as I know he’s never moved from his perch above the vent window, but what I do know is I’ve never had a problem with those mysterious nighttime raiders since I moved the plant trays to his side. My wife claims this is because the other side of the greenhouse has a window where it’s easy for mice to hop in from the lavender garden just outside. Me, I prefer to believe it’s Greenie using his protective magic and good luck on every plant that resides under him. There’s no way 2,000+ years of magic garden statues could be wrong about that.