It was a good year for our flowering quince bush
- col-teri-stein
- October 4, 2023
- 670
Before this year I didn’t know much about quince. We have lived at our house for more than 40 years, and all this time we have had a thorny shrub at the side of the house that comes out with the most gorgeous coral-colored blooms early each spring. I never knew its name.
With old age setting in, we haven’t been as diligent at keeping the bush cut back. This year the bush just took over the side yard. The blooms kept coming for longer than usual, some were in clusters and some individual flowers blossomed directly from a branch.
In the past few years, I had noticed a fruit or two that appeared on the bush that looked like a green apple, only it had a rounder shape. This year, as I trimmed back some of the bush, I noticed underneath all those leaves were a bunch of these apple-like fruits. I counted about 30 of them.
What could they be? Google to the rescue!
I typed in “bush with apples on it.” The first picture that came up was my beautiful shrub, and it said it was a flowering quince. Of course, it had other names such as chaenomeles or Japanese quince. They must have left home to come here because quinces are native to Eastern Asia in Japan, China and Korea.
The plants do best in full sun, which makes sense because my flowering quince is in the sun for most of the day. I learned people can’t eat quince raw, but animals can eat them. Though they are hard to cut and peel, when cooked, quince turns pink. I guess I should have kept one to try that.
You should wait until your quinces turn yellow before you pick them in mid-September to mid-October. I might have waited a little longer before picking the ones at our house, but they twisted right off the branches with an easy, satisfying snap. Quince also is a relative of apples and pears.
As far back as the seventh century, quince was being used to make jelly by mixing it with honey. The fruit was highly valued in the Middle Ages, and it was eaten by monarchs and aristocrats as a sign of greatness.
We’ve had this delightful plant in our yard for decades and didn’t realize how wonderful it is.
After the quinces were picked, I laid them out on a bench on the patio and separated them into piles of 10. I couldn’t believe it: There were 48 quinces of all sizes from small to large. I posted the haul on Facebook. I knew they could be used to make jelly, but a friend commented that her father used them to make wine.
It appears quinces will keep a while after you pick them, but not wanting to go to the trouble of making jelly, I decided to send the quinces home with my sister. She lives on the edge of the woods, and I wanted to see if anything would eat the quinces.
The next day I got an update — a deer was observed eating a quince. I hope she liked it.
I also helped wildlife in another way this week. I had been keeping an eye on a poor toad stuck in the window well at my house. I grabbed the piece of wood I keep specifically for toad rescue and placed it at an angle inside the window well so the toad could climb out.
The next day the toad was still there. Like me, this toad seemed to be a slow learner. I talked to him and explained the entire process of climbing out of the window well. “So go, get out of there,” I said in conclusion.
The next morning the toad was still there. Maybe he was hungry or dehydrated from being in the window well for so long. I had on some garden gloves, so I picked him up, although I was fearful of what might happen next as toad revenge. They tend to leak.
To my surprise this toad just rolled over in my hand with his cute toad feet tucked up closely to his little, plump body — so sweet. I headed to the back of the yard and carefully placed him in an out-of-the-way spot.
“Have a nice life,” I said.