I have a quince tree coming today from burntridge nursury. They say it is a naturally small tree and google says it fruits on new wood.
Since it fruits on new wood i could keep this guy as small as i wanted to no? say 4 or 5ft wide by 5 or 6 ft tall maybe even smaller?
Im trying to cram it into an existing food forest some where that is pretty full as is instead of making a new bed for it.
FWIW - i LOVE quince as a pie filling type texture over ice cream and my wife loves the smell of the fresh fruit so we do not need more than 10-15 quince in a year i wouldn’t think
I have a pineapple quince that I grafted to quince rootstock maybe 15 years ago that’s the size you describe. It’s planted in the median strip between sidewalk and street in fast draining hardpan and doesn’t get much water or fertilizer.
It persists and bears fruit, not every year, maybe 25 fruit.
I like to quarter them, and bake in the oven with maybe a tablespoon of sugar in the core cavity and some water in the pan. Like a baked apple texture, with rosy flesh and a bit of caramelization. Those with good vanilla ice cream, and some of the syrup from the pan.
I’m going from memory on the description, its been a few years.
awesome. I actually have the pineapple one coming. I also got a piece of scion wood for the “orange” cultivar which im going to try to graft onto an existing branch and see what happens.
good to know i can keep it pretty small and still get a few fruits. Thats all i really need with this one.
if i can keep it the size mentioned in the original post it would have enough room and get full sun - it sounds like it could work out based on the answer prior to yours.
i emailed burnt ridge last night on this (can i keep it small and cram it in or should i make a new bed for this guy) but they usually take a few days to respond so i asked here as well so i could plant right away. they just did tell me that i could keep it 4-5ft wide/tall and still get the few fruit that we would want pretty easily so i think im going to plant it in the food forest where i have a little empty space that gets full sun.
Here it is in bloom 7 or 8 years ago. I think its about the same size still. The new leaf groth whorls, or whatever they’re called, look kind of like flower buds if you don’t know what you’re looking for. The bloom after leafing out, of course.
Yes, very crude estimate going from memory. That looks like over 100 blooms. The fact that I let it bear while so small probably significantly contributes to the dwarfing. It may have dropped its fruit in the pictured year, I don’t recall.
My Pineapple quince is about 10% self-fertile and that keeps it from over-bearing.
Quince readily sprouts new branches after a hard prune, so just prune a couple of branches way back every year or so to encourage new wood. Keep the other branches pruned to your space requirement. Plan on eventual thinning of yearly fruit to about 2x the number you want, to allow for brown rot, bird pecks, etc. Once fruit is golf-ball size, it will stay on the tree to maturity; anything smaller may abort.
I keep my semi-dwarf rootstock quince tree to about 12x15 feet and thin fruit to average 200 pounds per year, so it does not take much tree to get a minimal quantity of fruit.
Often when referring to fruiting trees new wood is one year old wood, all the rest, 2 year etc is old wood. With figs being an exception, as new wood means green wood. It is confusing and on stone fruit and other tree fruit I describe wood by age as to be clear. So I say 1 year wood, not new wood.
I have a contorted quince in full sun, under dry conditions. Soil was poor, but I have been adding mulch and sometimes compost, and leaves too.
It is going on 4th leaf and it’s about 2.5 feet tall. It is a bush like beast. Flowered for the first time 3rd leaf, but no fruit formed. I don’t care, it’s strictly ornamental, any fruit is a bonus. I’m into edible landscapes. I hope it stays small. So far it’s really small!
Here it is 5 minutes ago.
awesome. yah i dont need no 200lbs of quince. they are pretty big but i never weighed one so maybe 25 pounds would be enough assuming a little over a pound each…
My tree is literally the same variety as LarryGene’s. He provided the scion. His tree is more than 10 times the volume of mine and produces well. I don’t think mine is getting any other quince pollen where its planted, and I do thin some fruit. When I don’t they aren’t terribly crowded though.
