I need pictures!!!!!

Nancy.

Hello my "sister"!

Well, my quince is budding too! Maybe they needed the cold you had last year???
The only time I ever had fruit develop on any of my quince was when I lived in Louisiana. They looked rather like little green deformed pears...hard as a rock and very sour or tart. I made jelly with them. Okay on English Muffins, but not really worth the trouble, to my mind.

But Quince flowers are just B_E_A_U_T_I_F_U_L!
What a lovely shrub to welcome in Spring!

~ Annie

I make "Paradise Jelly" a mixture of Quince, Cranberry and Apple. I know someone who has a Quince tree :o) which is different from the shrub Chaenomeles (flowering quince) the fruit on the shrub looks almost the same as the fruit from the tree, either can be used to make jelly. The fruit is ripe when it turns yellow but it's still hard as nails.

Annette

I bought it at a plant sale. It's suppose to be a Quince tree. The tag said 'rare' whatever that means. Of course when I see something for $7.00 and a 'rare' tag on it I gotta have it.

If you recall I hired a landscaper in December to prune and weed. The yard just got way out of hand. I wonder if they pruned it and it encouraged blooms? I'm going to have to hug them :-)

As Annette says quince (Cydonia) is different from Flowering or Japanese quince (Chaenomeles) They are easy to tell apart if you look at some pictures. Chaenomeles is a shrub rather than a tree. It will have red, pink or sometimes white blossom whereas quince blossom looks like large apple blossom. The leaves of Chaenomeles are smaller and glossy and those of true quince are large and velvety. Chaenomeles fruit are like a yellow knobbly apple about the size of a tangerine whereas quince fruit look like a large bumpy pear with a lovely bloom on them. Both fruits have a delicious scent. I doubt a December pruning would make it bloom. That's just about the worst time to prune either species as it would cut off the flower buds which would have been formed the previous summer long before the landscaper got near it. Neither type actually needs much pruning. If you must prune do the Chaenomeles immediately after flowering and treat the quince as you would an apple tree. Actually if it's a Chaenomeles I'm surprised it's only budding now in California. Over here they have been in flower for a couple of weeks. So maybe it is a true quince. Have a look at some pictures and let us know what it is you have. Curious Flora.

oh I'd love to see!

I really love quince trees. The shrubs seem to hold their flowers for a long time here.

I can't recall if I've told this here or not, but I planted a quince tree out near the road in a sort of guerilla gardening fit of madness a few years back. The city planted a horrible maple out there, despite my cries of protest. So, clad in traditional black, I crept out one dawn and replaced the maple with the quince. Wouldn't you know, a city rep came out and queried us about the switch. We could honestly say "the tree" had been hit by a car (true, the quince was in fact hit by a car a couple of days later, so I replanted it and lugged stones out to surround it. We find those stones several yards away from the tree sometimes. The tree is OFF the road, we guess people are trying to park on it.). So, I'm probably on some black list the city forester keeps. I skipped a neighborhood watch meeting when he came to give a talk, sure that he would see me and say "YOU!"

Quince trees suffer a little from the humidity here and I haven't even tried to spray mine. Even if the fruit is too buggy to eat, it still smells nice and the flowers are gorgeous in the spring. My tree keeps its leaves until very late in the year also. And, it won't grow up into the power lines, unlike some maples I could mention.

Happy birthday, by the way! I see I missed it.
kent

Kent, you had me in stitches! How I would love to be your neighbor. You seem to always keep life interesting, thank God for people like you.

Edna

Congrats! I've seen some quince blooming in the area around here. I used to have those at a previous house and always saw them as a sign of spring.

Cameron

hello everbody, anything new about fruiting Quinces?