Chinese flowering quince

Photo: Shu Suehiro — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 5 through 8

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

The largest-fruited of the flowering quinces, with hard, sour, strongly astringent fruit unfit for eating raw — like true quince, it needs cooking, and is used for jelly, preserves and as an aromatic, tart lemon substitute.

Hardiness

Zone 5–8

Habit

Shrub

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Summer–autumn

Mature size

Shrub 2–3 m, sparsely branched and fiercely spined — the tallest of the flowering quinces

Light

Full sun to partial

Soil pH

6.0–7.0 (near-neutral)

Environment

Montane

Native range

Central and western China, in montane scrub and woodland.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

2–4 yrs

Growth speed

20–40 cm/year — medium.

Spacing

250 cm (98 in) apart — about 6.3 m² (67 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Alternate, narrowly oblong to lance-shaped — noticeably longer and narrower than the other flowering quinces — 5–11 cm long with a finely toothed margin, on strongly spiny stems.

Root system

Shallow, fibrous and suckering, spreading into a dense thorny clump over time.

Fruit description

The largest fruit in the genus: hard egg-shaped pomes 8–15 cm long, greenish-yellow and heavily perfumed, far too astringent raw but excellent cooked into jelly or preserves.

Propagation

Semi-ripe cuttings in summer, or division of rooted suckers. Seed needs about three months cold stratification but gives variable plants. ⚠ Raise two genetically distinct plants — cuttings off one bush are a single clone and cannot cross-pollinate.

Pollination

Partially self-fertile — better with a 2nd plant

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.