How To Grow Japanese Quince?

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Japanese quince, or chaenomeles, is a rather compact and incredibly cute fruit shrub, blooming with colorful orange-red flowers. Nowadays, it can be found more and more often on personal plots. The Japanese quince is especially attractive because it is easy enough to grow it. How can this be done?

How to plant?

To acquire Japanese quince, it is enough to plant seeds extracted from ripe fruits. Usually they are planted in rows on the beds. At the same time, there is no need to maintain a certain distance between them - the fact is that the grown seedlings will subsequently have to be transplanted in any case, so it is quite enough to plant the seeds at a distance of twenty to twenty-five centimeters from each other.

Ideally, Japanese quince is planted before winter - in this case, the seeds will have time to bypass the natural stratification that stimulates their best germination. And before the cold comes, the seed beds are insulated with a layer of rotted manure about three to five centimeters thick.

The first shoots of Japanese quince can be admired in spring. By the way, with the onset of spring, young bushes are fed with infusion of bird droppings (1:20) or mullein (1:15) diluted in clean water. And after a while (as soon as two or three pairs of perfectly formed leaves are found on the plants), the seedlings are picked on a pre-prepared bed. At the same time, the soil on the beds must be loose.

First transplant

First of all, you need to make sure that the Japanese quince grows in the "right" place. Experienced gardeners recommend planting it in areas where an impressive snow layer accumulates in winter - it will protect cute bushes in bad weather. And the area where the Japanese quince grows must certainly be well illuminated by the sun!

The hardened seedlings are transplanted in the spring to a new place (and it will not be permanent yet). Before doing this, the soil is thoroughly dug to a depth of forty to fifty centimeters and well fertilized. When planting seedlings, it is important to try to maintain a distance of twenty to twenty-five centimeters between the bushes, and twenty-five to thirty centimeters between the rows. Each bed should be watered abundantly and mulched with humus, compost or peat. And then frame arcs made of metal are installed above it - the covering material will subsequently be attached to them. In such a kind of mini-greenhouse, the planted culture must be kept for at least a month and a half.

Top dressing

As soon as six to seven leaves appear on the seedlings, they begin to feed. For this purpose, a mixture of double superphosphate with urea or ammonium nitrate is perfect - ten grams of each ingredient are taken for each square meter of the beds. This fertilizer is thoroughly mixed with the soil and then watered. And when ten to fifteen leaves are formed on each bush, the Japanese quince is fed again. The best feeding in this case will be a mixture of potassium sulfate (15 g), urea or ammonium nitrate (30 g), double superphosphate (15 g) and water (10 l). In addition, throughout the growing season, Japanese quince can be fed with infusion of bird droppings.

Cooking Japanese quince for winter

By winter, the fruit bushes must be thoroughly insulated - cover them with lutrasil (this is the name of a special material made of polypropylene fiber) and throw more snow on top.

We transplant the bushes to a permanent place

The matured fruit bushes are transplanted to a new place with the onset of next spring. For planting each seedling, a shallow hole is first dug. Then, having dug up the Japanese quince from the previous beds, their root system is slightly pruned. In this case, special attention must be paid to the taproot. As for the distance between the bushes, when they are planted in a permanent place, it should be 0.8 - 1 m.

In the fall, it will not hurt to carry out a formative pruning of this culture - so that young shoots can subsequently fully develop, it is necessary to shorten overgrown branches. And by winter, the Japanese quince is again thoroughly insulated.

The first flowering of these colorful bushes can be observed in the third or even fourth year (approximately at the end of May), and in the fall of the same year, summer residents will be able to harvest the first harvest of fragrant and juicy fruits.