howcdid your concoctions turn out @jaunders1. Those are nice looking Chaenomeles. How did you happen into them? There seems to be little info about fruit quality of various cultivars. Those look extraordinarily high quality compared to what Ive encountered. Ive always been tempted to make something like lemon curd with the few that Ive harvested and eaten.
@hobilus I actually just came across them along the side of the road growing as a neglected hedge in someoneās front yard. The bright yellow fruit all over the road really caught my eye. I ended up making a paste/jam out of them, cooked them down then pureed them. They are still very sour like a lemon but very aromatic. What I ended up doing is mixing a spoon full of the paste into some water and making a sort of lemonade. Interesting as a novelty but thereās still a bunch of it sitting unused in my fridge and freezer. I donāt know how true to seed they are but I have tons of seeds saved if you are interested. In the spring I will try to take note of the blossoms and maybe approach the owner to see if they have any information.
I have an old hot pink flower Japanese quince here.
It makes very little fruit but I really enjoy the 5-10 pieces a year candied and as a syrup.
A couple weeks ago I grafted a couple varieties on it that I got from fruitwood. Anything that said it was fruiting in the description - Toyo Nishiki and Jet Trail. They were out of tanechka cuttings but I got the last plug.
Last year I tried to graft tanechka cuttings to it but they all failed. Itās hard to tell the right timing and method. The flowers start to open just a few weeks into the start of winter. (By far the earliest to flower, beating camellia by a couple weeks.) Iām curious - if something flowers in March they usually say to graft in January or February so the graft has a month or two to heal and then it can shoot forth with spring growth. But grafting two months before early January flowering also seems wrong so I wonder what the ideal time would be
Your flowering quince is the larger species Chaenomeles speciosa which comes from China (vs. the low growing Japanese C. japonica). Itās interchangeable in terms of fruit use, but I just wanted to point it out since itās common for people to not know there are multiple species.
Thank you! @JohannsGarden
The dichotomy as itās usually presented on the internet is between flowering and fruiting quince. People also say flowering quince aka c japonica as if they are the same. So I appreciate you helping clear this up.
As a understand it, the confusion around this genus has been going on for a long time and itās not unusual to even find mislabeled specimens in botanical gardens.
Would the common name be Chinese Quince?
On a side note my house was landscaped around 1928 and there are some plants that seem to be from the original landscaping, if itās possible that they are that old. Boxwood hedges, the pink quince, camellias and even a very old seedling feijoa that was 15ā tall and wide. Two pears and several plums I had to cut down but have grafted to root suckers. Itās very satisfying to work with whatās here.
Iāve done a lot of research on the original owner who was an old lady that lived here in the ā20s and ā30s and this quince and this camellia seems like they are her touches - I like to think there are still traces of her around 80 years after her death
āChinese quinceā is used sometimes as a common name, but I tend to avoid that since there are multiple Chinese species of āquinceā type plants. Chaenomeles speciosa, Chaenomeles cathayensis and Pseudocydonia sinensis. I like just calling them āflowering quinceā since thatās what I first learned them as and then it avoids putting a country of origin on it if youāre not sure which species youāre looking at.
I agree with JohannsGarden here. The small pink thorny flowers are flowering quince. In the US, many varieties have been bred so that they donāt make fruit. I have often seen Pseudocydonia referred to as Chinese quince, and never with any other common name. I have usually seen Cydonia Oblonga referred to as ātree quinceā.
John S
PDX OR
Much thanks to @JohannsGarden for helping me identify my tree as Chinese Quince, chaenomeles speciosa. I have a couple successful grafts of both Toyo Nishiki and Jet Trail. Iām interested to see how much fruit they make compared to the regular flowering quince which is intended to be decorative
Iāve got my first flowers on āTanechkaā (a hybrid selection, so C. Ćsuperba rather than C. japonica). Given that it was aledgedly selected for fruit production, Iām very curious to see if it will set fruit well when still so young (my second year growing it). Overall, Iāve noticed it seems more upright that other selections of C. japonica, C. speciosa and their hybrids. Iāve not seen a single thorn on it either. I think the flowers are kind of a reddish-papaya color and so they really pop.
So I got my first ripe fruit from the hybrid cultivar āTanechka.ā Although it is is listed in a couple places as C. Ćsuperba which indicates it is a hybrid between C. japonica and C. speciosa, I see evidence that it is actually a three way hybrid. Its more upright growth habit (relatively speaking) and elongated fruit are traits I attribute to C. cathayensis which I know has also been used (even if to a lesser extent) in the region where āTanechkaā is alleged to have come from. That would mean it should actually be listed as C. Ćcalifornica.
Despite still being in a pot, this specimen actually set and held quite a bit of fruit, though many fell off before ripening which I attribute to the plant conserving resources. Iām not sure if this will be consistent from year to year, but this spring the āTanechkaā was a bit later blooming that most of my other Chaenomeles and so bloom overlap was very poor. This didnāt seem to impair it from setting fruit though, so Iām tentatively concluding that this cultivar has a fair degree of self fertility and could potentially be grown by folks who want fruit, but donāt want to plant more than one bush.
I got some fruit on my regular quince this year, made some membrillo last night. No fruit on the old flowering quince because I cut it back last year. I do have one little Tanechka in a pot from a rooted cutting from fruitwood. Iām curious to see how yours develops.
Funny, Iām planning on doing some asphalt repair on my driveway and need to buy some gravel. There are many size options from 1/4" to well over 1". Iām curious if there is a consensus on what āgravel sizeā means.
Thatās kinda funny. In my neck of the woods when we say we want gravel that apparently means something with dust. If itās a ācleanā product they tend to just call it rock, regardless of the size. I learned that the hard way when I ordered a dump truck full of 1 inch gravel and it was mostly rock dust. Apparently I needed to ask for 1 inch rock. The things you learn when you leave the city.
Yeah, the ones with dust are āminusā after the size as opposed to ācleanā.
I think I want 5/8 or 3/4" minus for under the asphalt because I think it will pack well and Iām not needing it to have superlative drainage characteristics.
Hmm. I think they call the stuff with a lot of dust ācrush and runā around here, and if they know you are doing a driveway or road type project, they will likely assume it is what you want. Specifically because it does pack and develop some cement-like properties. The clean stuff does better for areas where you want better drainage over time, or a more decorate look. (Gravel is not my idea of an aesthetic, but itās got a following.)
As to the offiical topic, my chaenomeles did not give me fruit this year. Iām pretty sure the flying leaf-eaters came along at the best time to eat the flowers too. They didnāt let me enjoy any paeonies either. I didnāt expect a lot of flowers on either, but I was looking forward to an increase over last year.
Good point. I think that most people are thinking 1/4" to 1/2". I got some on Craigās list. The ad said āfree gravelā. When I got to the house, they were rocks. Like 3/4" to 1 1/2". I still took them, but Iād have to mix them in with other āgravel sizedā pieces. Otherwise, there would be absolutely no moisture or nutrient retention.
John S
PDX OR