A homegrown horticultural spectacle in Santa Clara Valley, California.
Axel Erlandson was a farmer and hobbyist tree shaper who lived from 1884 to 1964. A Swedish immigrant to the United States, he began to shape trees in his early forties after observing natural inosculation (stem fusing) on his farm.
In 1945, Erlandson began working on the roadside attraction that would become his Tree Circus. He transplanted the best of his specimens to the parcel of land purchased near Highway 17, and began to plan new delights; sycamores fused into a woven basket; a climbable ladder made of lateral branches; a tree that arched over the walking path beneath it on two curved "legs". He always maintained that, in order to convince his trees to grow in such fantastic shapes he would simply "talk to them".
Despite generally poor attendance, The Tree Circus managed to stay open until shortly before Erlandson's death in 1964. It was then sold, then defaulted on, then sold again, and finally scheduled for development (and bulldozing). In these interceding years of 1964 - 1984, the Tree Circus developed a crop of life-size plastic dinosaurs (an unfinished attempt at a roadside rebrand), a local committee attempting to keep the trees in situ, and several devoted architecture students who documented, fertilized, and watered the circus trees, despite being charged with trespassing. Only 29 of the 70 Circus Trees survived.
In 1985, Gilroy Gardens bought the remaining living trees from the stymied developer of the lot, transplanting them to the horticultural theme park, where they joined– at long last– a real circus.
You can visit the living trees in Gilroy, California, for the price of an amusement park ticket.
While the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History houses the trunks of the dead ones.