Gnome Sweet Gnome (The Naked City)

With all the conflict and chaos in the world today maybe it’s timely to briefly digress from the tragic norm and enter a fantasy world that seems to make everybody happy – something that has long been part of the Australian suburban tradition. While garden ornaments are not as popular in 2025 there is every indication it’s heading for a renaissance, an unbridled resurgence of kitsch and universal goodwill.

Yes, gnomes and flamingos and every variety of Australian fauna reproduced in rusty steel, concrete and twisted wire. And that’s just for starters. Today there’s a whole new school of garden artisans, creating the most incredible additions for your manicured front yard or inner city balcony.

Flashback to the 50s and 60s and Australian yards were rife with all manner of decorative items like bird baths, fish ponds and not so cuddly concrete koalas. Whether it was a sign of prestige or you just wanted your bungalow in the burbs to stand out, installing a string of hot pink flamingos was common place.

As we gradually became more worldly and pseudo-sophisticated, many of these garden embellishments were derided as plain old kitsch. Their true value as genuine folk art was undermined by snotty nosed intellectuals who regarded much of suburban culture with disdain.

Today there’s a new appreciation by hip young art historians like Melbourne broadcaster Emma Peel, fascinated by the story of Australian garden ornamentation. In an ABC interview a few years ago Emma recalled spotting a Melbourne house fronted by a kangaroo ornament, complete with peeling paint and an ear that had fallen off and been concreted back on.

“It was an old Italian lady who told me the origins of why the kangaroo came to be there. It was because they moved to Australia post-war, her husband and herself, and just embraced the whole Australian lifestyle,” said Peel.

“It was so great that they were able to provide for their family back home in Sicily, and their relatives referred to her husband as Uncle Kangaroo. So to mark that he went out and found this kangaroo ornament and cemented it by the front door and it is still there today.”

Marsupial statues might be thin on the ground these days but garden gnomes continue to proliferate. Their true origin is somewhat contested but it’s generally agreed it goes back several hundred years. They have long been regarded as protectors of the natural world as well as warding off robbers and various pests (like door to door sales people?). There are numerous other superstitions associated with them and they are often said to attract good luck and wealth. Break one however and you could be looking at a real run of misfortune.

Today in Australia they are readily available in stores like Bunnings or from a host of online retailers. They continue to be good sellers but just why people buy them is open to question. A Bunnings salesperson told me that they were popular with young families who bought them primarily for their kids as well as elderly pensioners looking to set up a small cactus and succulent garden on the balcony of their retirement apartment.

Sadly in a number of very rare cases they have been used as an instrument of death. In 2013, 76-year-old British ex-serviceman Frederick Gilliard beat his wife of fifty four years to death with a garden gnome, for which he received a somewhat lenient sentence of only four years. Gnomes have also been abducted and held for ransom, and in November of last year Dutch police discovered a 2kg gnome made almost entirely out of MDMA. That was certainly a case where the gnome would have brought its owner great wealth and happiness.

Not surprisingly a number of American companies have chosen to update the traditional garden gnome so you can now buy a little concrete critter draped with an automatic rifle. The selling point – ‘No one will look to challenge the fierce protectiveness conveyed by this modern decorative outdoor garden gnome’.

Perhaps if the great Australian tradition of garden ornamentation is to continue we need to ditch the gnomes and flamingos and look to something much more edgy. If you live in an apartment or inner city terrace you might consider a giant illuminous tarantula on your window sill or balcony – a great way to ward off a potential home invasion, Those with a big slab of grass in their front yard might opt for a cast iron Ned Kelly letterbox or a life size feral camel made entirely out of old beer cans.

The Sydney Morning Herald recently reported that public art was making the burbs safer with installations like illuminated murals in laneways that were previously regarded as unsafe. Forget about security cameras – let’s go for a more symbolic scattering of painted concrete eyeballs, René Magritte style. strategically placed in front yards and apartment buildings. It’s a message to all and sundry, not that big brother is watching, but that the community is looking out for you.

Beats a batch of freaky ceramic gnomes any day!