First plant to flower each year is the quince (Chaenomeles speciosa). At a time when there is so much grey, it cheers me up to see the bright spots of red appear at the very back of the yard.
Quince looks its best in winter and early spring. Once the weather starts to get hot it loses a lot of leaves and turns yellowish. For that reason it is good to mix it with some other shrubs that stay green in the summer. Ours has remained green longer since we constructed a high wooden fence behind it that protects it from the western sun.
The shrub tends to look rather wild. The limbs are long and somewhat thorny. They were here before us so I can’t say how old they are or what variety they might be. We don’t trim them back at all and they are about six to seven feet tall and about as wide. They are practically indestructible.
Quince comes in a variety of shades of red and pink. A house a few blocks from us has a wonderful bright red one in the front yard that gets a lot of sun and blooms profusely. I will be looking forward to seeing it in a week or two.
Later there will be small fruits. I’ve heard they make a nice jelly. The birds and insects get to ours before we’ve had a chance to find out.
Comments (4)
Yeah, it does make good jelly. I lived in a 125-year-old farmhouse in the backwoods of southern Ohio for a time, and we had a 6-foot-high quince bush that was really prolific. It was thick and bushy and kept its leaves nicely through the summer.
Of course, the summer is much shorter and a lot cooler in those parts.
for soe odd reason my last few posts have not shown up.. Im here Bill, Really I am….
My quince, which looks to be the same color as yours, blooms in May.
Our Quince was a wonderful surprise for us. We had never even seen one, and we inherited this one with our 1928 house we bought last November. It is huge- probably 15 feet high, about 3-4 feet through the center, shaped like a large umbrella. The hummingbirds love it…