In 1925, a California farmer bent trees into strange shapes for his daughter: some are still alive nearly 100 years later

In 1925, Swedish-American farmer Axel Erlandson began an unusual experiment on his farm in Hilmar, California, after becoming fascinated by the way trees could naturally grow together. Instead of leaving that process to chance, Erlandson began bending, guiding and grafting young trees into shapes that looked more like pieces of architecture than ordinary plants. One of his earliest creations was the Four-Legged Giant, formed from four American sycamores planted close together. According to Gilroy Gardens' history of the Circus Trees , the Four-Legged Giant was one of the unusual tree forms Erlandson began creating around 1925. What began as a family project soon became a lifelong experiment in turning living trees into unusual works of art.

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