Cydonia oblonga
Quince
At a glance
- Light
- Full sun
- Hardiness
- Hardy down to −25 °C
- Pruning
- Feb–Mar
- Harvest
- Oct–Nov
- Spacing
- 400 cm, rows 450 cm
- Water need
- Medium
Photo: Fir0002 at English Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
This description was machine-translated.
Description
The quince is a charming small house tree with large white‑pink flowers in May and heavy, gold‑yellow fragrant fruits in autumn. Raw fruits are hard and astringent, cooked they become aromatic jelly, mus, and liqueur. Varieties such as 'Konstantinopeler' or 'Bereczki' are well established in the DACH region.
Care instructions
Plant the quince in a sunny, warm, wind‑protected spot with deep, not too dry soil. Water young trees regularly during dry periods. Prune sparingly in late winter to keep the crown light, quince bears on perennial wood. Harvest the fruits from mid‑October to November, once they turn yellow and emit a strong fragrance.
The care notes were machine-translated from German.
Garden year
HarvestOct–Nov
Soil & site
Soil pH
Soil type
loamy, humus-rich, well-drained, moist
Plant the quince in medium-heavy, humus-rich, well-drained soil that stays evenly fresh and moist. It will not tolerate waterlogging. It is sensitive to lime: above pH 7 it easily develops chlorosis (yellow leaves) from disturbed iron uptake, so avoid strongly chalky soils and aim for a slightly acidic to neutral soil.
Feeding
Medium feeder
Months
Mar–Apr
The quince is undemanding and reacts sensitively to overfeeding. In spring before growth starts (March/April), apply a little mature compost shallowly over the root area of the tree. On nutrient-rich soils this is enough every two years; on lean soils, also work in horn shavings shallowly in spring. Do not apply lime, as the quince is sensitive to lime.
Pruning
Prune the quince in late winter, from the end of February to the beginning of March (weeks 9 to 10), while the sap is dormant before bud break and only if no frosts below -5 °C are expected, as its wood is frost-tender. Moderate annual thinning is enough, without removing the young fruiting shoots; skip summer pruning, because open wounds in summer increase the risk of fire blight infection.
Overwintering
Quinces planted out get through winters in the lowlands of Germany, Austria and Switzerland without protection. Give them a warm, wind-sheltered spot, ideally against a south-facing wall. Protect young trees in the first years with a mulch layer over the root zone and a hessian sack or horticultural fleece around the trunk; place container quinces bright, cool and frost-free and keep watering sparingly.
Propagation
Methods
- Cuttings
- Layering
- Grafting
- From seed
The most reliable method for true-to-variety quinces is grafting: in late summer (July to August), bud a dormant bud (chip budding or T-budding) onto a Quince A or BA29 rootstock, or graft in spring by whip-and-tongue grafting when the rootstock begins to grow. That gives you a tree that keeps the variety and characteristics of the parent plant.
For cuttings, in late autumn to early winter, after leaf fall, cut well-ripened shoots 15 to 25 cm long (wood at least one year old). Make the lower cut at a slant just below a node and the upper cut straight. Put them in pots with free-draining, sandy-humus substrate and overwinter them frost-free but cool, in an unheated hallway or a cool cellar with light. By spring the cuttings form roots; the rooting rate is rather modest, so patience is needed. (Alternatively, you can also insert younger, semi-ripe shoots during the growing season.)
For layering, bend a young, flexible shoot down to the ground in spring, lightly nick the bark on the underside and cover the wounded spot with soil. Weigh the shoot down with a stone so that it keeps contact with the ground. Even more reliable is mound layering at the stool: cut the shrub back close to the ground so that it forms many new shoots in spring, then heap loose soil around their base. Over the summer the shoots root; in autumn or the following spring you separate the rooted layers and pot them up.
Sowing only makes sense for hobby experiments or for raising rootstocks: take pips from fully ripe fruit (October to November), wash them thoroughly, mix them into moist sand and keep them cool for four to six weeks (cold stratification in the fridge). Then sow in pots and place them in a bright, moderately warm spot. Several years pass before the first fruit; the seedlings do not come true to variety and often differ from the parent plant.
Companion planting
Companion planting is partly traditional gardening lore. Where the reason is known, it is given.
Some of these explanations were machine-translated.
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Varieties
5 varieties‘Bereczki’
You will find a Hungarian quince with large, elongated, strongly fragrant fruits.
‘Birnenquitte von Portugal’
You will find ‚Birnenquitte von Portugal’ a robust‑growing pear quince with large, elongated pear‑shaped fruits.
‘Cydora Robusta’
A modern quince bred specifically for robustness.
‘Konstantinopeler Apfelquitte’
An old apple quince with rounded, deep yellow fruits whose shape recalls an apple.
‘Vranja’
One of the best known pear quinces of all, valued for its large, strongly fragrant fruit.
Notes from real gardens
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From the magazine
Quince in the home garden: varieties, harvest and use
The quince is robust, self-fertile and bears alone. Apple versus pear quince, the late harvest point and what becomes of the hard fruit, from jelly to liqueur.
Pruning Pear and Quince: Reading and Renewing Fruiting Wood
The pear grows steep and ages fast, the quince blooms at the tips of new shoots. Here's how to read their fruiting wood and prune both right.
Planting a pear tree: warm spot, rootstock and pollinator
Pears want warmth, flower early and almost always need a pollinator. How to solve the pear puzzle of spot, quince rootstock and a matching second variety.
Where to get this plant
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