Quince Pruning Handout

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Quince Pruning By Cass Turnbull

Good Quince stacking; patient deconstruction of the Two plants are called quince: Cydonia and branches using loppers is the answer. Chaenomeles, which is the common flowering quince. I like to show off by saying its And the bush itself is fairly inelegant. It just botanical name, pronounced ky-nahm-oh- looks like a giant thicket—which I guess it is. lees. Its early spring flowers have a lovely Aside from that show-stopping moment in the translucent quality rarely seen in the garden. spring, many gardeners find it hard to justify Quince flowers in shades of pink, coral, red or the space it takes up in the garden. white. I prefer the darker colors because on a sunny spring day they veritably glow. During The Spreading Quince their moment on stage, they are hard to beat. The mature size of most quinces (i.e. the average size of the plant in 10 years) is 6’x 6’. Another good thing is that quince has a Trying to keep it significantly smaller by naturally angular branch structure. Branches pruning is unlikely to succeed. It simply that are cut and put into a vase arrange exhausts the gardener and can ruin the themselves in a very artistic way, making you plant’s flower show and branch pattern. look very talented. Once the quince bush reaches its mature size it If you appreciate unusual identifying doesn’t stop—it just slows down. Its ultimate characteristics, as I do, you will enjoy looking height is probably 10 feet, but it will grow closely at the leaves. The regular-shaped much broader—a veritable thicket. The leaves make up the majority of foliage, but expanding root system sends up new on closer inspection, you will also see smaller colonizing suckers in an ever-larger circle. disc-shaped leaves wrapped around the stems. They’re kinda cool. Dutiful people rip up the straying suckers every Quince occasionally produces odd, lumpy year. But most watch helplessly as their nice ‘fruit’. A less pleasant, but quite memorable, shrub becomes a dauntingly huge clump. I identifying characteristic is the barb found on have no good answer for what to do about this the tip of each branch. relentless spread. If you decide to use a mattock to grub out the perimeter roots, I Bad Quince doubt that you will hurt the remaining plant. The branch structure that makes for good This option is usually declined due to the flower arrangements also makes for thorny nature of the bush. aggravated gardeners. The pruned branches fight back, slapping you in the face and Maintenance Pruning refusing to be pulled out of the bush. Make The problem of the ‘too big’ quince is not sure that you wear a set of wrap-around really a problem if you have a lot of room. If safety glasses! Cut quince branches defy your quince has enough room and it looks

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good, don’t bother pruning it. The best is a little less than average. I recommend pruning is no pruning, one more benefit that mostly small selective heading cuts (under 1/4 comes from correct placement. It will bloom, inch in diameter), a few larger selective look good, and you’ll get all the credit. heading cuts (up to 1/2”), maybe a few cane removals (3”- 4”)— up to a maximum of one- However, if your shrub is encroaching on a quarter of the foliage removed. Pruning out sidewalk or other structure, pruning can help. deadwood is always in order and does not You usually prune a quince like a mounding- count against the pruning budget. If you habit shrub, using selective heading cuts to exceed the budget you will stimulate water remove the worst, most interfering branches. sprout production, and that’s not good. New That way, the cuts are always hidden inside shoots zoom up from the site of your over- the shrub. And when the shrub is next to a zealous cuts. These shoots are unattractive, walkway or house, you prune so that it impossible to get rid of by re-pruning (it just rounds-down, mimicking the natural shape of causes more to come back), and thornfully the shrub. Don’t make it into a vertical wall of painful. So, go easy, especially at first.

This re-sprouting problem is why I don’t understand why quince gets listed as a good candidate for espalier.

Maybe these gardeners know something I don’t. If you know of a quince espalier that has been successfully maintained for over ten years, please write or e-mail me through PlantAmnesty. I’ll pass the information on to Selective Pruning “Grab & Snip” Method future readers. foliage. Also, if necessary, whole trunks or Disease and Timing canes can be removed to ground level, as if Although I don’t think a lot of disease is pruning a forsythia or other cane-grower type spread by pruning tools, I will say that quince shrub. It’s possible to moderately thin out is the only plant I notice showing a disease quinces, like a tree-like shrub. But most response to pruning. When I prune, I start people give up on this idea after one struggle seeing more and more die-back of limbs. The with the thorny branches. bark peels in places. My professional The Pruning Budget diagnostician friend tells me that it is not, as I assumed, fire blight. She says it’s either brown Every plant has a pruning budget. It can be rot or cytospora canker. That make sense, as it large or small and consists of three factors: looks just like what afflicts our cherry trees. the kind of cuts (heading, selective heading, By pruning, I am knocking around spores at or thinning), size of the cuts (big or small) and the same time as I am opening wounds the amount of foliage removed (a lot or a (pruning cuts) on the plant. So, I try to prune little). For quince I would say that the budget

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in dry weather. Brown rot on quince is One of the best-looking masses of low (four- probably a local problem, due to our frequent foot) quince bushes I ever saw was at a home drizzle and relatively warm winters. In other where the owners had tried to eliminate them climates, prune selectively just before or the previous year by cutting them to the while the shrub is in bloom. Then you can use ground. Several other folks have confirmed the cut branches in a vase. Remember, if you that they cut their quinces to the ground as a are selectively pruning in moderation, any regular maintenance procedure. That would time is the right time to prune. Because of the make it ‘coppicing’ or ‘stooling’ (done annually disease problem here, I only prune if I have or even once every three years) rather than to. And I do it in the summer. ‘radical renovation’ (done once every fifteen or thirty years to start the shrub over). Radical Renovation Radical renovation is the name for the It’s an awful lot of work though. So, I prefer process of cutting an entire shrub to a low one of two other options. Option One: Find framework or to the ground. It is pretty hard an abandoned quince bush somewhere and on the health of the shrub. But it can be a steal branches from it in the spring. Option useful, one-time procedure for those shrubs Two: Plant a dwarf variety such as ‘Jet Trail’, that can withstand it—like quince. Radical ‘Minerva’ or ‘Pink Lady’. When the Visitor’s renovation is usually used to fix a shrub that Center at the Washington Park Arboretum has been mal-pruned for years (i.e. repeatedly installed masses of quince in the island sheared). Instead of rehabilitating the plant between parking spaces, I thought, “What slowly over several years, you cut the whole numbskull did this?” But it turned out to be a thing to the ground with your loppers, saw dwarf variety, ‘Cameo’, that stays nicely under and/or chainsaw. It will regrow and look great three feet without pruning. And, unlike the in as little a year. Reduce the possibility of disappointing flowers on other ‘dwarf’ death by keeping the shrub well-watered and flowering shrubs, these plants have full-sized by doing it in a kind season, meaning not waxy blooms in the spring. You gotta love during drought or in freezing weather. those hybridizers.