What to do with the quince

[LAH]

I have an informal hedge row of the old fashioned flowering quince bushes. It is now about 18 feet wide and 50 feet long. It's quite tall (maybe 12 feet) and suckers madly. I've never pruned it except many years ago when an exceptionally hard winter and dry summer caused it to die back drastically. I cut it off to about 12 inches above the ground and it flourished - maybe flourished too much.

So, what to do now? The forsythia bushes to the east of it have never bloom very well, in part because the quince and the staghorn sumac shade it. The quince bushes have already flowered but have been set back because of the late freeze. I'm considering cutting the whole row of quinces back to about

12 inches and spend the rest of the summer trying to keep the outlying suckers cut back. I just can't imagine how I could ever get the bushes pruned by just cutting out a few at a time. It really looks like a job for a chainsaw. I realize I'll probably have few blooms next spring but I hope the extra sun will give the forsythia bushes a boost and help them bloom better, at least for the next few years.

So, what do you think? Good plan or will I be sorry? I just finished reading madgardner's vent about the cut off forsythia and fear I may be committing essentially the same crime except it will be quince bushes instead. I really like the quince bushes and short of like the wild overgrown look but fear it's getting overdone. Any advice or comments would be appreciated.

[William Wagner]

Any fruit? Makes a great jelly in combo with other fruits and alone. Otherwise the flower is pleasing. Tart + sugar = remember spring but I do not jell them. Don¹t do much jam etc these days.

My flowering quince bushes border on small trees and I like them for the bloom primarily. Sort of fuzzy.

Bill who does the low carb stuff except in Dec and Jan. :))

[LAH]

Not to speak of, just a few here and there. I'm almost positive there won't be any this year what with the late freeze.

[Alex]

|> Any fruit? Makes a great jelly in combo with other fruits and alone.

|Not to speak of, just a few here and there. I'm almost positive there won't |be any this year what with the late freeze. We have a flowering quince but it produces only the occasional lonely "apple". It's a spreading & runnering thug but has lovely salmon-pink flowers. I think I've seen dark red ones too.

Our neighbour had a quince that was more like a shrubby tree with many upright stems. Don't remember the flower colour. It produced copiously but she didn't want the fruit. We got some and it made great jelly. Sadly she uprooted the thing & burned it without offering us a cutting.

I'm thinking the garden-centre"flowering quince" (what we have) are maybe a variety that's bred for ornament rather than fruit?

Alexander Miller.