Quince
Cydonia oblonga
Fragrant old-orchard fruit — nasturtium draws its pests away.
- Type
- Fruit · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Yellow
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Watering
- Moderate
- Soil
- Deep, fertile, moist
- Feeding
- A balanced feed in spring, with a compost mulch.
- USDA zones
- 5a–9b
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- May
- Pruning
- Winter-prune to an open goblet.
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 170 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- 7 days after the first fall frost
- Mar–May Bud Break
- May–Jun Flowering
- Jun–Oct Fruit Set
- Oct–Oct Harvest
- Oct–Nov Growing
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 11 ft 6 in
- In-row spacing
- 9 ft 10 in
- Between rows
- 14 ft 9 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody, shallow and far-reaching
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 4 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 23–34 ft across, about 2–3× the width of the plant
Almost all of a tree’s roots are in the top two feet of soil, where the air is, and they run out well past the branch tips. The deep taproot most people picture belongs to the seedling; the tree grows out of it and spends the rest of its life spreading sideways instead.
The habit is Quince’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- When
- October, as late as the weather allows — leave fruit on the tree for maximum aroma but bring it in before the first hard frost. Trees crop in 4–5 years.
- What to look for
- Skin turns from green to a uniform bright golden yellow, the gray down rubs off easily, and the fruit is powerfully, unmistakably fragrant — one quince perfumes a room. It stays hard as wood even when ripe: hardness is not unripeness. Fruit parts fairly easily from the spur when ready.
- How to harvest
- Lift and twist like an apple, handling more carefully than the rock-hard flesh suggests — quinces bruise readily and bruises brown in store. Keep the short stalk on.
- How often
- Usually a single pick, or two passes a week or so apart, in mid–late autumn.
- Storing the crop
- Store like apples — cool, dark, in slatted trays not touching — for 2–3 months, but keep them in a separate room from other fruit or the perfume taints everything nearby. Flavor actually improves after a few weeks in store. Inedible raw for most palates: cook into membrillo (quince paste), jelly, or poach — the flesh turns a deep pink.
- Codling moth Its caterpillars tunnel to the core of apples and pears, leaving frass-filled exit holes. Hang pheromone traps from late spring and pick up windfalls promptly.
- Blight Quince leaf blight
- Brown rot Fruit rots brown on the tree with buff rings of spores, then mummifies. Remove all affected and mummified fruit promptly, on and under the tree.
- Fire blight Fireblight
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Bats ChiropteraHunts Codling moth
A single bat takes hundreds of moths and mosquitoes in a night, and the moths are the parents of your cutworms, corn earworms and hornworms. Put up a bat box on a warm south wall, leave a night-scented corner unlit, and never spray after dark.
- Parasitic wasps Braconidae & TrichogrammaHunts Codling moth
Tiny, stingless wasps that lay eggs in or on caterpillars, aphids, and moth eggs — the white cocoons riding a hornworm are their calling card, so leave that caterpillar be. Umbel flowers with shallow nectar keep the adults fuelled.
Comfrey, Chives, Nasturtiums
Good neighbors
Too hard and astringent to eat raw, quince turns fragrant, pink and sweet when cooked.
Green-leaved fruit, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com