Does anybody have experience with Victory Flowering Quince(or any other producing Quince bush) for zone 5? Raintree site says it is flowering in March and it does produce fruit in fall. But I can’t imagine a plant that flowers that early and produces anything in zone 5… I am looking for a bush Japanese quince that produces very sour fruit for cooking needs that will reliably grow in zone 5. I know my mother( zone 4-5) in Russia has it, and it is a very low bush(3’ max) that produces every year small and sour fruit, but it flowers in May.
Galina, I think we need to take an advantage of the zone 5 and to plant something more eatable, such as a regular quince. I would like to graft some next season, but I am not sure how it is compatible with the other species. Raintree is in zone 8, so for them the quince can flower in March. In your zone it will be more likely as April.
Thank you, Antmary. The regular quince would be nice, but as far as I know it is not very reliable in our zone and also it is a tree, which means space that I absolutely do not have even for one tree, forget if you need two for pollination, and I am not a grafter. Even for flowering quince I am going to offer my neighbors to plant it in between our yards as decorative plant, and only pick from my side to leave fruit on their side for birds(they are big fans of bird feeding). The fruit of flowering quince is not eatable, correct, but it makes wonderful sour syrup that can be used to make zucchini dry jam. So far I tried different sour fruit to make it, but can’t get close to what my mother makes 
. Good point for Raintree location, I didn’t know. You probably right - it will flower in April here…
Edited: Just did some reading from Cornell site. Looks like it will be really tough to grow real quince in our zone 5(NE) famous for jumping 30 degrees up and down during winter/spring season, and also all the pests problems do not look optimistic. At least flowering quince almost doesn’t require attention other then light pruning in spring to keep it from spreading and fruit picking(as many as you need, the rest will be picked by birds) in fall.
There are a couple of threads about flowering quince. They are beautiful when with flowers! You can ask those guys about fruits.
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I will try to graft a couple of quince branches on pear, I do not want to have the whole quince tree. I think if quince is grown in the Southern part of Russia, it can be grown in Nebraska too. I like the idea of high pectin content in quince, so I can add it to various jams and quince marmalade sounds very attractive. But you are right that a flowering quince will be a lot easier to grow.
I know some folks growing cydonia oblong or fruiting quince in z5 here in Maine. I am trailing some varieties at my z5a spot, so far so good (2yrs in…)
Some flowering quince, chaenomelese are selected for fruit quality, but not many, nor are these widely available. I have a ‘Lemon’ chaenomelese that purchased from Oikos, it is a dwarfy one with fruit that supposedly tastes like it’s namesake. Bloomed for the first time this year!
Thank you all, I found couple varieties that I want to try, one is Victory(found a source) and another one is Crimson and Gold, that I can’t find so far. Some day I also going to get couple seeds form the plants my mother has and try to grow from seeds, not sure how successful it will be.
Update om my flowering quince. Description said it is going to be 5-6 ft bush. For some reason I thouight it will be 5-6 ft upright. It is not in my case. It spreads horizontally, and diameter already could be 5 ft. But height is just 1.5 ft. Is it normal for the Victory Flowering Quince? Only flowering quince I know is from my mother’s garden and there (zone 5, continental climate) it is really low, but branches are much shorter than mine. Right now my plant has long almost horizontal branches that make roots where they touch the ground and fruit laying on the ground. I would like to espalier it, but not sure if it will affect it is winter hardness…
Old thread here, but everything old is new again. Any updates on your plant(s)?
Those all seem very hardy too. I’m growing Chaenomeles Contorted Quince or Chaenomeles speciosa ‘Contorta’ . I need a small ornamental bush. They can get larger, but it is a bush, and I will prune after flowering to control size. I will lose fruit that way, but don’t expect to do it every year. I’ll cut it way back every few years. Mine is a stick right now. I’m not really concerned about the fruit, I will use it sometimes. I hope it suckers as I would like another plant for bonsai.