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| Photo Credit: David L. Morgan |
| A quince hedge can make a bold, beautiful statement to a winter-weary garden. |
Rounding a narrow curve on 2-lane Farm Road 17, I was surprised at the sight: a hedge of quince shrubs in full flower bordering an old farmhouse.
East Texas is pretty dreary in late February, and about the only forecast of spring in the countryside is winter wheat growing green in the fields. The bright red color of the flowers on the leafless branches of the deciduous quince was a welcome sight to a traveler, so I stopped and took some pictures. Flowering quince (Chaenomeles sp.) is not exactly uncommon in the South and Southwest, but it’s not the most popular kid on the playground either. Who knows why it’s lost its glitter – maybe due to competition from new azalea cultivars, Indian hawthorns, nandinas, abelias and other evergreen shrubs. Quince is as pretty as any of them, in my opinion. It’s probably tougher, too; the ones I came across on the road between Athens and Grand Saline, TX, were showing no evidence of winter damage, and apparently had received no recent attention. In the abandoned farmyard, they seemed to share a kinship with the old-standard irises in the yard, oblivious to time and treatment, flowering loyally in late winter and needing no care at all, save warming temperatures and longer days. Like the irises, they likely had been planted many years before I came along.
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| Warnings |
- Quince may be sensitive to fire blight, canker, rust, apple mosaic virus and scale insects – pests that affect nearly all members of the rose family, of which quince is a member.
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| Facts |
- Not only does quince flower beautifully, it produces an aromatic, tasty fruit, called a pome. While it’s much like its close kin, the pear (Pyrus communis), a pome is slightly grainier and only about 2 inches in diameter. It’s used to make delicious jellies and marmalades.
- Cydonia oblonga, the tree form quince species, is so tough, that for centuries it’s been used as a rootstock for pears, many of which can’t grow successfully on their own roots.
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