I love gnomes and so did my mother. The last few years of her life she started to buy a lot of them to be outside one of her windows and amonst the plants in her patio. I used to drive up (9 hours if the cops weren't out) and take her shopping and do what ever she needed help with that she didn't want to ask the caretakers to as she was in an assisted living facility. We would go shopping and buy new plants and gnomes, and she had them all named and she would instruct me as to where they should be and we spent hours positiing them in the exact locations and then she would make up stories about what they were saying to each other and it was fun for both of us. Now I have her collection in my back yard and it brings back fond memories. Mother was in a wheel chair and could not do a lot of things and now I am beginning to know what she was going through.