Quince- What's the difference?

plant_dr

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I have a quince bush growing in my yard. For some unknown reason the lady who lived here before planted it directly under a giant Scots pine so I don't think it's doing the best it could be. I tried digging around last year to see it I could transplant/ divide it but that's not gonna happen due to its roots being intertwined so much with the pine's. I don't know what variety it is, it's got peach colored flowers and produces the regular quince fruit sometimes. it's

So my questions are: whats the difderence between the chinese flowering quince and the regular fruiting quince? Can the non-chinese ones make good bonsai? Can they air layer or do I take cuttings to propagate it?
 
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0soyoung

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Generally, the 'flowering' moniker means it does not make fruit, flowers but no fruit.
  • True, fruiting quince is Cydonia oblonga
  • Japanese or flowering quince is chaenomeles (there are also chaenomeles varieties that do make fruit)
    • these are bushy little shrubs grown for their flowers
  • Chinese quince is Pseudocydonia sinensis
    • often used make bonsai trees
 

Shibui

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Over here Chinese quince and European quinces have white to slightly pinkish flowers.
Stronger colored flowers - reds, peach, bright whites and multi colored - are usually chaenomeles, Japanese flowering quinces.
Chaenomeles often flower on bare branches at the end of winter, just before the leaves emerge. They are also shorter, multi trunk shrubs with many thin trunks growing out of the ground. A picture of the shrub would give a pretty good idea if it is chaenomeles.
A couple of photos would help to Id your plant. Include overall shape (whole plant), leaf, bark for best ID.

Whatever species it is you can propagate either by cuttings or layers. If you can find a stem with even just a small root near the base it should transplant easily. All 3 should make reasonable bonsai though, in my experience, the relatively long internodes and lack of ramification do make it difficult to make really good small bonsai.
 

Cadillactaste

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plant_dr

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I will get more pictures later when the sun comes up but here's an older one that shows its overall structure.

20170920_145357.jpg
 

AlainK

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The shape of this plant is typical of Chaenomeles with its multiple trunks/shoots from the base.

There are many cultivars and I, think they can hybridize easily. I have a 'nivalis' (white), two others, not to mention a big one that I must regularly trim, the plain species probably, with red flowers.

chaeno-specio-cameo_170403a.jpgchaeno-specio-nivalis01_170326a.jpgchaeno-specio-pink_170403a.jpgchaenomeles_160304a.jpg

Since I read that they can hybidize rather easily, I also planted some seeds from fruit taken on the big one a couple of years ago. On the 4 or 5 left that haven't flowered yet, who knows, I might get a new hybrid.
 

Paulpash

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They make an attractive splash of color when most of the collection is still fast asleep. I'd dig up just a little bit with roots attached and go from there.
 

AlainK

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They make an attractive splash of color when

I gave some cuttings to my sister (you know, the one who live by tha Atlantic coast), and some of them already flowered in October.

I sometimes prune branches with flower buds in Januaryu/February and put them in a vase, in a rather cool room (16-19 ° C), with some aspirin in the water, and when the flowers seem to be ready, put them in the living-room (20-21° C). Most of the time I have a nice sort of Ikebana.
 

plant_dr

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Here are the photos as promised. This shoot shows how the leaves alternate as they go up the stem. You can see the close up of the bark on the larger stems as well. Then there are some tiny buds starting to pop out.
20190107_164254.jpg20190107_164221.jpg
 

0soyoung

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It is a chaenomeles.

Probably it will bloom before putting out new leaves. If you are planning on digging it, or some of it out, dig it before the leaves start to push - you'll probably knock off most, if not all of the flower buds in the process. Alternatively wait until after the summer solstice, ca. August. On second thought, if you dig some in spring, dig a bit more of it in August = seeing is believing.

Or is that not the question? o_O
 

Shibui

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As mentioned earlier, very little root needed for these to grow. Even if you get a bit with no visible roots put it in anyway :cool: chances are it will grow.
 

shinmai

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It looks like there could be some nice potential there. If the barrier to digging it up is entanglement with the pine roots, perhaps you should consider cutting around the apparent root mass for the quince, knowing that you're cutting some [probably smallish] pine roots as well. The pine can certainly spare them, and they'll be easy to remove, being dead, when you are ready to move it from a recovery box into a training pot. You could probably prune away a lot of spindly new growth and extraneous trunks to make it easier to get it out of the ground.
 

plant_dr

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I started an airlayer on this back at the end of April just to see what would happen.20190429_174452.jpg
I covered it in sphagnum moss and wrapped it tightly in plastic. Kind of tricky for a one-handed guy, but I did my best.

20190626_123736.jpg I checked it at the end of May and there was alot of callous material that had built up but no actual roots yet. It hadn't died above that airlayer spot which was also a good sign.

I wrapped it back up and then became occupied with the kids being home going crazy all day for summer vacation.😨 😨😨😨

I finally got a minute to check it again today and there are roots in there!(sorry no picture).The moss had dried out enough that I didnt want to risk prying it apart and damaging the roots. The roots didn't seem too dry and the leaves above the airlayer still are healthy so i know it hadnt been dried out too long. Then I added more wet moss around the older moss and roots so it can reconstitute and wrapped them all back up again until I have time to separate it.

This airlayer most likely won't become bonsai because it did it on an area without much movement in the trunk. I really just wanted to know if I could do it in the first place. Now that I know I can be successful with airlayering I'll do a bunch next year.
 

0soyoung

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This airlayer most likely won't become bonsai because it did it on an area without much movement in the trunk. I really just wanted to know if I could do it in the first place. Now that I know I can be successful with airlayering I'll do a bunch next year.
Congratulations! 🎈🎈🎉🎉🎆🎆
Straight pegs are nice bases to graft onto --> another fun activity for one hand! 🤪
 

plant_dr

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Here's my airlayer from last year doing really well. There are a couple of buds up at the very top still to open.

I also started a couple more airlayers from the same shrub this year with better trunk movement to start with.
20200424_155111.jpg
 

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