July 24, 2013 - Circus Trees

[SIZE="4"]
[FONT="Arial Black"]The Ladder Tree[/FONT]

Just a bit south of where I live is an amusement park
designed for younger children. It is also the home of
the famous Circus Trees.

This link will take you to site that shows all of the trees at the park.



[FONT="Arial Black"]The Needle and Thread Tree[/FONT]

The park was originally called Bonfante Gardens after Michael Bonfante
who rescued the circus trees after their creator passed away. (It is now called Gilroy Gardens.)


[FONT="Arial Black"]The First Circus Tree[/FONT]

Axel Erlandson made the first circus tree by taking four saplings and grafting them together.

I don't usually reference Wikipedia, but it has a good amount of information and some good pics.



This is a before and 40+ years later comparison.

Designboom has more pics and info.

Arborsmith Studios presents more interesting reading and pics.

Here is an excerpt of a book about arborsculpture.[/SIZE]

I think they got a lot of those trees from Scotts Valley. They had a park called Lost World that had weird trees too, and lots of huge dinosaurs. As kids we always enjoyed seeing the TRexs and things looming over the buildings seen from the freeway. I remember when they closed it everyone worried about the cool trees. Then we heard they were going to a similar place in Gilroy.

Yup, same trees. I hadn't heard about the dinos, tho.

The ladder tree isn't looking so healthy.