Garden gnomes lend a definite flavor to any yard. Some people might find the flavor noxious, but to countless others, it is a sweetening additive to the landscape.

Young children are drawn to kindly gnomes, finding them mysterious and even magical. Grown-ups of a certain age, perhaps recalling the outdoor statuary of their childhoods, appreciate gnomes’ old-world charm, which is redolent of English cottage gardens and 19th-century Mitteleuropa, land of garden gnomes’ origin.

Given the growing popularity of gnomes, they are today available displaying the full range of human behaviors, for a range of admirers.

Gnomes are cool, and a longtime local business was, you might say, gnome-inspired. Gnome Landscapes, Design, Masonry and Maintenance was established in 1977 after young Rick Campbell, aloft in an apple tree and sporting a red cap and a bushy beard, was informed by a client of a certain gnomish resemblance.

Campbell retired in January, but his son Chace Campbell and Todd Marco co-own Gnome, on U.S. Route 1 in Falmouth. You can see garden gnomes in the display gardens there. And Gnome continues its longstanding tradition of giving a garden gnome to clients.

Indeed, tradition is a key part of the enduring appeal of gnomes, several of whom are “captured” in the accompanying photo gallery.