Quince repotting

RedPine

Yes, no one is saying fall is not a great time for them, we are letting you know that you just don't have to wait until fall. It is done safely with benefit for them in spring as well.

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jersanct

Thank you very much. I appreciate everyone's advice.

Chris

Vance Wood

You guys had better look up the literature on Quince Chaenomeles species, any one who has done a lot of work with this tree will tell you (that I know of) say do not spring root prune this tree. Quince are kind of out there by themselves, I am not talking out of a hole in the top of my head. If I remember correctly Bonsai Today a number of years ago went into this very subject. Yoshimura says the same thing in his book. I believe that International Bonsai had an article quite a while back saying the same thing.

You cannot site logic, because that is saying what you think and this is not always the way it is with growing things. My method of doing Mugos and Scots Pine in the summer seems to defy the standard logic but it works better than spring root pruning.

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RedPine

According to Jiro Fukada via International Bonsai 2006/NO 1 you can safely repot from Oct-March. I have found with my own quince this is true.

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Vance Wood

Are we talking about flowering Quince or Chinese Quince? The two are related, distantly related, but may not be the same in this issue. I would be glad if this were true, I hate doing things in the fall because of the unpredictability of Michigan winters.

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RedPine

Hi Vance,

The entire issue is devoted to flowering Quince. The article I used above is titled, How To Grow & Style Japanese Flowering Quince Bonsai. It is a very good read. Evergreengardenworks/Brents' article follows it but does not get into the details. I have taken the roots down to the nitty gritty in spring w/o any ill results. Maybe someone else has had good/bad experiences with this they will share with us?


I think it is very much like your "rule bending" with mugos, literature speaks against summer re pots but you yourself know you are safe in doing it. In bonsai there is that grey area we have to allow for, one reason fall re potting quince is important is so people can choose a better pot before the winter displays and shows begin. The horticulture reasons given are that things like nematodes for example are less likely to invade the roots during fall, not that a spring re pot will harm your tree. Landscapers don't seem to bother with this but I can easily understand why someone in the trade having lots of trees on or even in the ground would follow fall transplanting. But when one is able to give the needed attention and using good pot culture these dangers drop dramatically because we can control the environment surrounding the tree. Sometimes we get to safely break some rules and reap benefit from it.

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Kansai

"...most of us do root prune deciduous trees just before bud break."--Red Pine

Quince is not a deciduous tree. It's a caning shrub and it's not truly decidious. The quince in my landscape usually retain a smattering of green leaves throughout the winter, especially down close to the ground.

Personally I think you could repot quince just about any time you wanted to. They're hardy and resilient as weeds. For me it doesn't make much sense to wait until spring. A repot in late fall or even winter would a) give any root wounds time to callous before the soil warms up in the spring and those nasty little microbes get busy, b) give the soil time to settle down around the roots, and c) maximize the potential for root development before the spring growth spurt.

Another notion I'm having trouble with is that the roots fuel spring flowering. Everything a spring-blooming tree needs to throw a blossom is sitting there in the flower bud when the tree goes dormant. If you need proof, go out around the middle of winter and cut a couple of branch tips a couple of feet long off a quince--or an apple, crabapple, hawthorn, cherry, or plum for that matter--put them in a vase of water in a warm sunny spot inside your house, and in a couple of weeks it should be blooming. It may even push a few juvenile leaves before it petters out.

From personal experience I dug two small but well established "Jet Trails" last mid-January to make way for a backyard construction project. I dropped them into 8" terracotta pots with a little standard potting soil and mulched them in back in the cutting garden for the rest of the winter. They both put on an incredible flower display in the spring, greened up normally, and never missed a beat when I replanted them back into the landscape in June.

DR

rockm

"You guys had better look up the literature on Quince Chaenomeles species, any one who has done a lot of work with this tree will tell you (that I know of) say do not spring root prune this tree."

I have routinely root pruned Japanese quince for years. No problems at all.

"For me it doesn't make much sense to wait until spring. A repot in late fall or even winter would a) give any root wounds time to callous before the soil warms up in the spring and those nasty little microbes get busy, b) give the soil time to settle"

You're dreaming and not thinking clearly. Roots DO NOT GROW IN WINTER. They remain dormant--and it you cut them--with open pruning wounds that can die back or turn to mush with each frost. WOUNDS WILL NOT CALLUS IN WINTER. Just because you're having warm weather this week do you expect it to remain so in January?

"Everything a spring-blooming tree needs to throw a blossom is sitting there in the flower bud when the tree goes dormant."

I wasn't talking about flower buds. I was talking about green growth--which is what keeps the tree alive. Flowers come at the expense of a tree, they do nothing to help it survive--other than to reproduce OTHER plants. Green growth and roots fuel plant growth. They are interrelated. Flower buds aren't really of much consequence for plant growth.

Look, go ahead and prune the thing now, if you want. You seem to be rationalizing doing it anyway. It will probably live through the procedure. Japanese quince are tough (And yeah, they're deciduous as they drop leaves in the winter--which is the definition of deciduou--there is no category for "caning" plants "that retain some leaves."

Many decidous trees hang onto a smattering of green leaves through the winter--it doesn't make them "non-deciduous" it makes them rather hardy deciduous plants. Wild roses do this, as do live oaks (which are deciduous, but keep ALL their leaves all winter and drop them in the spring...)

BONSAI_OUTLAW

""You're dreaming and not thinking clearly. Roots DO NOT GROW IN WINTER. They remain dormant--and it you cut them--with open pruning wounds that can die back or turn to mush with each frost. WOUNDS WILL NOT CALLUS IN WINTER. Just because you're having warm weather this week do you expect it to remain so in January?""---rockm
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Mark, I thought root growth was controlled by temperature and not season (40 degrees F min. for growth)....

I know for a fact that my roots grow almost all winter here on the Texas coast thanks to our mild winters...