On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 23:24:09 +0100, John Hatpin wrote:

Rodger Whitlock wrote:

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 23:48:53 +0100, John Hatpin wrote:

In the process of transforming our front garden, we've come across a
pretty elderly quince that defies all attempts to remove it.

Please advise. We're despairing.

Elderly quinces are pretty much ineradicable. Their roots go down
to China and will sucker when you've murdered the top growth.

Is that true of the Japanese quince?

That's what I'm referring to. Quince trees, sensu proper, are a
piece of cake.


Learn to love it.

That's going to be tough (like the plant) - it just doesn't fit in
with our plans.

Time to change those plans.

I'm really not kidding. I had an elderly quince under the bedroom
window at my old house. It had been there roughly 25 years when I
bought the place and sort-of sprawled this way and that and
didn't look awfully good. It had thrown up any number of suckers,
was definitely not a single-stem affair by the time it fell into
my lap.

At one point I contemplated tying it to the bumper of my car and
pulliing it out, but decided that there was considerable risk of
tearing the bumper off the car. So much for *that* bright idea.

What I finally did was follow a friend's advice. Every spring
when the flower buds began to swell, I would cut back all
branches to the first flower bud (first as you count inward from
the growing tip). This eliminated all the purely vegetative
growth. After a few years the shrub had developed something of a
bonsai-ish look and was fairly presentable.

I should add that it had flowers of an especially beautiful
bright coral color, and I was pleased to turn a messy affair into
something worth looking at.


--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
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