Flowering Quince.

[bodhidharma]

hey Jow, cant see a problem with red flowers and blue pot. I think the colours are very enhancing.

[Jow]

Neither do i

[Jester]

Nice specimen Jow. I think the flowering quince is a very underrated species. I must say, that pot is very nice.....a very unusual shade of blue. Definitely a nice match.

[Jow]

The pot is hand signed by 'yama fusa' of tokoname Japan. I think (at least in Victoria) they were fairly popular and were imported in semi large numbers around 15 years ago. That being said you don't see many around any more.

I am thinking of importing a few if people would be interested.

[Scott Roxburgh]

sweet pot...i would be interested in getting one...let me know the details if you decide to go ahead.

Cheers

Scott

[Jow]

Will do.

[Asus101]

Its great to see a quince styled in its natural form.

[Amanda]

Great natural form, Jow.

How's it coming along?

[Jow]

It's going ok...

I have spent a year living with it and now i want to change it. I think the branches are too straight. I think i am going to cut every branch back to one node and regrow the entire canopy, but this time with more rough and twisted branching. It's still in leaf so i will have to wait until leaf drop to do this work. Who knows after it drops its leaves and i can really see the structure i might warm to it again.....

[Jow]

Hi all,

Well its that time of year again, flowering time! It has put on a good show this year after a heavy feeding regime and another nice result is there has been a heap of back budding. Over winter i have been looking at the structure a lot and have decided on doing some drastic pruning after flowering to get more dense ramification closer to the base of each shoot. Stay tuned for updates, and in the mean time enjoy the flowers!

IMG_0500a.jpg

IMG_0500b.jpg

[FlyBri]

Gday Jow!

They are some REALLY RED flowers! I can only hope that when (if?) mine flowers that the blossoms are somewhere in your part of the palette.

You have expressed some dissatisfaction with your Quince's direction, and I look forward to seeing what you do to make it please you again. As a complete Quince novice, I reckon there's a heap to work with there, and you're the man to do that work.

Thanks!

Fly.

[notae]

You have inspired me to dig my quinces from the garden and start potting.

I like them for the flowers mine are pink and white..
great for a suttle flower arrangement in the house..

Red is Very nice.

[Jow]

Chopped.jpg

Above you can see the result of today's pruning.

It seems like a rather drastic prune, but if you read on i will attempt to explain my logic for having to do this.

If you go back through the progression to the first wiring picture you will see that the branches were pretty much cut to the final outline. I had had a few issues with die-back when the tree was in the poly box so i left the branched long as there were very few low buds developed that i could cut back to. Since it has been growing so strongly in its new pot, it has produced numerous low buds that i could now cut back to. And today that's what i did. I could possibly have done this cut back last year but i wanted to play it safe as it was the first time i had worked with this species.

Reason.jpg

The above picture shows one of the branches i cut off. bare in mind that this is only the top half of the branch and the straight section was about twice this length.
This is how the tree leafed out. it only really budded back at the tips.
What this meant was i had a tree with lots of pretty straight branches with a couple of sub branches or twigs at the tips. This is not the look i was after.

Today i have cut right back to the first buds, and from now onwards the ramification will begin here rather than just at the tips. the beauty of this is that it will introduce a lot more taper and movement into each branch and it should make for a much better tree in the future.

As the tree grows each year i will keep hard pruning the new growth to force new buds to open up low on each shoot.

Often in bonsai you have to do things that seem to send the tree backwards (ie. hard pruning) in order for the tree to advance.

Oh and i discovered why the flower pics were so red.... the camera was set on a 'vivid colour' setting.... the shot at the top of this post is with that setting turned off.

[alpineart]

Hi Jow , very nice if i do say so .I have had a shocking run with these , but i haven't given up just yet . Still willing to learn the care and control of this species ,you've done well .Cheers Alpine

[Jow]

In the short time i have had this one i have learnt that they are fairly easy to grow. That being said, they seem to like to stay on the cool side over summer so once it starts to heat up i put mine into semi shade. Since i have been doing that it hasn't looked back.