Gadenin日本語Get the appHow this tree flowers, and what that means for the saw
Chinese quince carries its flowers singly on short spurs borne on wood that is two years old and older, opening with or just after the new leaves. The flowers are single, cupped and a soft pink, and each one that is pollinated becomes a very large fruit, which is why a tree in full flower still ends up carrying only a few dozen fruit. Because the flowering wood is older wood, a great deal of the crop lives on the inside and middle of the tree rather than on the outer shoots.
That habit sets the pruning rule. Removing whole young shoots costs you almost nothing, but cutting back or removing the older framework branches removes the spurs and takes years to replace. Shearing the outside of the tree, which is what most people mean by tidying, produces a dense shell of leafy growth, shades out the interior spurs and gives you a tree that flowers less every year.
The other constraint is the trunk. The reason to grow this species is bark, and every cut you make on the main stem is visible for a decade. Cut cleanly at the branch collar, leave no stubs, do not paint the wound, and make far fewer cuts than you would on an ordinary fruit tree. A Chinese quince pruned once lightly every second winter usually looks better than one worked on every year.
| Cut | Effect | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Shearing the outside of the head | Dense shell, shaded spurs, less flower each year | Never |
| Removing a crossing or rubbing branch | Loses that branch only; better light inside | Correct |
| Taking out dead or blighted wood | No loss at all | Always, and at once when blight |
| Lifting the lowest branches | Exposes the trunk and the bark | Correct, one or two a year |
| Cutting back a main framework limb | Removes years of flowering spurs | Only to reduce a badly placed tree |
| Leaving a stub on the trunk | Dies back and scars the bark permanently | Never; cut at the collar |
| Removing basal suckers | No loss | Always, while they are soft |
When to cut
The main pruning is done in late winter while the tree is dormant and bare, once the hardest frosts have passed and before the buds begin to move. The framework is visible then, you can see exactly which branches cross, and the cuts callus quickly as growth starts. Pruning at this point also lets you see the bark clearly, which is when most people notice a branch that should be removed to open a view of the trunk.
There is one exception that overrides the season. Fireblight is cut out the moment you see it, in summer, when a blackened hooked shoot tip stands out against green leaves. Waiting until winter lets the infection run down toward the trunk, and on this species the trunk is what you cannot afford to lose. Cut at least eighteen inches (45 cm) below the lowest visible discoloration, into clean wood, and disinfect the blade between every single cut.
Avoid pruning in wet weather in either season. Open wounds and wet bark are how the serious diseases get in, and simply waiting for a dry spell is free protection. Avoid pruning in late summer and autumn as well, because cuts made then do not callus before the cold and the regrowth they provoke will not harden.
Shaping a young tree in the first four winters
The shape you are aiming for is a single clean trunk of four to six feet (1.2-1.8 m) carrying an open head of four or five well-spaced main limbs, with enough space between them to see the sky through the tree. This is the shape that shows the bark, ripens the fruit and lets air through the canopy, and almost all of it is decided in the first four winters. After that the tree needs very little.
- First winter after planting Do almost nothing. Remove anything broken or dead and any shoot growing straight into the center. Let the young tree build leaf area rather than cutting it back to force branching.
- Second winter Choose four or five shoots at wide angles and evenly spaced around the stem to become the permanent limbs. Remove competing shoots close to them, cutting cleanly at the collar.
- Third and fourth winters Take out anything crossing, rubbing, growing downward or heading back through the middle. Cut each one right back to its origin rather than shortening it, and keep total removal under a quarter of the live wood.
- Lift the crown gradually Each winter remove the lowest one or two branches until the trunk is clear to head height. Doing it slowly keeps the trunk thickening evenly and avoids a row of large wounds at the same level.
- Every year, at the base Rub off root suckers and low water shoots while they are green and soft. A hardened sucker that is cut leaves a stub that comes back as three and spoils the line of the stem.
- From the fifth winter on Walk round the tree and remove only dead, damaged, diseased and duplicated wood, plus anything that hides the trunk. In most years that is twenty minutes and a small pile of brush.
Reducing an overgrown tree, and living with the regrowth
An old Chinese quince that has outgrown its place, or one that has been repeatedly sheared into a ball, can be brought back, but only slowly. The discipline is the same in both cases: never remove more than a quarter of the live wood in one winter, and spread the work over three seasons. Take dead and crossing wood first, then one or two of the tallest or worst-placed limbs cut back to a lower side branch, then thin the regrowth and settle on the final framework.
Expect a poor crop for two or three years and a proper one afterwards. Because the flowers sit on older spurs, hard reduction genuinely costs you flowering time, and there is no way to shorten that. This is the strongest argument for siting the tree properly at planting rather than pruning your way out of the mistake later.
Hard cutting brings up a mass of vertical water shoots the following summer, both in the head and along the trunk. Rub them off while they are soft and green, keeping only the few that fill a real gap in the framework. Water shoots left on the trunk are the commonest way a good bark specimen ends up looking like a shrub.
Note the date you pruned, roughly what proportion you removed and what the following summer's shoots measured. If most extension growth exceeds two feet (60 cm) the next season, you cut too hard, the tree is being overfed, or both, and the flowering will be down for a year or two.