The Garden Gnome

About The Garden Gnome

A May rain leaves Fairmont shining by seven — the downtown sidewalks, the grass down along Palatine Park, the little front yards that measure no more than a few strides across. The Garden Gnome treats those small lawns like rooms: cut in one clean direction, trimmed neatly around the porch steps and the lamp post, edged so the bed lines curve the way the yard already wants to. Small is not simple, either — a short yard shows every wobble, so the passes go slow and the corners get squared. Through summer it is a steady cut and a tidy sweep; by autumn it is leaves lifted off the beds and the walk before they mat down. What is left is a yard that reads well from the sidewalk, which in a town of close neighbors is the whole idea.