Do gnomes deserve a place in NZ garden history?

From Afternoons, 1:35 pm on 21 March 2023

Gnome statuettes – typically bearded dwarf-like figures with red pointed hats – have been popular in New Zealand gardens since the 1940s.

Although garden historians have dismissed them as kitsch and tacky, University of Waikato science professor Ian Duggan is working to give them the cultural significance they deserve.

Close-up of a garden gnome in grass

Photo: Sarah Mae / Unsplash

As a child growing up near Huntly, Duggan tells Jesse Mulligan that he was always fascinated with garden gnomes.

His grandparents in Levin – who he visited every year – had one by their fireplace.

'Those emotions I had seeing my grandparents are kind of all tied up in that gnome, I think.'

A Heissner classic gnome made in the 1920s by German modeller Karl Nuechter

A Heissner classic gnome made in the 1920s by German modeller Karl Nuechter Photo: Homegnome

Although gnomes didn't appear in New Zealand gardens until the 1930s, they originated in Germany back in the 1700s, Duggan says.

By the mid-1800s, very expensive terracotta German-made gnomes were popularised in English high society gardens by Sir Charles Isham.

In the 1930s, as they were experiencing a second wave of popularity in the UK, they started turning up in stately New Zealand homes such as Homewood in Wellington and Birchlands in Auckland (now Government House).

"These houses were amazing houses, homes of the real social elite," Duggan says.

Hand-crafted German gnomes came at a high price – a 1931 advertisement shows them selling for up to $500 dollars in today's money, he says.

Although they were a status symbol at first, 'garden variety' gnomes made of concrete and produced en masse became a common sight in New Zealand gardens during the 1940s.

This is when they took on a "Disneyfied" look, Duggan says.

"Walt Disney had bought out Snow White and the Seven Dwarves so the gnomes started resembling the seven dwarves."

These days, many people seem to have a distaste for garden gnomes, Duggan says, and serious historians tend to exclude them from New Zealand's garden history.

Even though they are much less ubiquitous, concrete Japanese lanterns and Chinese fu dogs make the grade, he adds.

As much as Duggan would like to see garden gnomes take their rightful place in our cultural history, he's not sure they ever will.

"There's a perception out there of them being kitsch that's not going anywhere."