What's wrong with this quince?

[Mike Corazzi]

I don't seem to be able to keep it happy.
If it gets the least bit thirsty, the ends ALL droop.
So I water and they perk right up.
For a day.....
I just read that fall is a good time to repot so I'm considering that 9/1 might be fall.

It sure needs SOMETHING!
The leaves are now beginning to look shitty and even curl a bit. It gets anti-aphid granules.



The soil is constantly wet-ish in order to stave off the droop.



Looking at that pic makes me remember that I was leery of root disturbance so there may be a demarcation of soil consistency. But I do water the whole thing.

Here's a pic of the entire plant:



One shelf down a WHITE flowering one is doing fine. The subject.... problem child ......is a RED bloomer.

Should I repot NOW and...if so.... how hard should I root prune? Google says it tolerates pretty severe root work.


?????

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Yeah, it seems to be that the pots have a lens of nursery soil and a surrounding area of friable media.

If I was to hazard a guess that would be the issue… and can lead to root rot, which may be what you are seeing.

Some cultivars are just hardier then others to this, but I wouldn’t let this condition stands long.

If you are able to care for these, I’d pull the quinces pots, gently chopstick out the nursery media, spray the roots with 3% H2O2, then repot in whatever you have around the nursery soil.

(I use smaller pumice and composted manure (4:1) for growing out quinces, maples etc, but anything with some organic ought to do the trick.)

Good luck!
DSD sends

 

[Mike Corazzi]

Yeah, it seems to be that the pots have a lens of nursery soil and a surrounding area of friable media.

If I was to hazard a guess that would be the issue… and can lead to root rot, which may be what you are seeing.

Some cultivars are just hardier then others to this, but I wouldn’t let this condition stands long.

If you are able to care for these, I’d pull the quinces pots, gently chopstick out the nursery media, spray the roots with 3% H2O2, then repot in whatever you have around the nursery soil.

(I use smaller pumice and composted manure (4:1) for growing out quinces, maples etc, but anything with some organic ought to do the trick.)

Good luck!
DSD sends

Followed the advice. The roots looked shitty. Fine, but stringy and dessicated looking. Did not cut any.
"Arranged" in new pot and it drains nicely.
Thanks for the luck wish.

 

[Mike Corazzi]

It seems to be sorta OK. The END leaves are very good looking. The leaves farther down not so much.
Should these be cut back hard and if so, when?
Thanks.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

We cut quince back a couple times a year. At this point one might wait for the tree to grow as much as possible and cut back next year in summer.

btw Michael Hagedorn has been a long time Chojobai quince student. He has posted a number of entries on his blog about the care of quinces. I defer to him on technical questions

cheers
DSD sends

 

[jandslegate]

We cut quince back a couple times a year. At this point one might wait for the tree to grow as much as possible and cut back next year in summer.

btw Michael Hagedorn has been a long time Chojobai quince student. He has posted a number of entries on his blog about the care of quinces. I defer to him on technical questions

cheers
DSD sends

He most certainly is, lol! I bought a chojubai start last fall an dug in to his blogs etc. It's super thorough but at times a bit overwhelming. I think that just speaks more to my being unfamiliar with the species than anything else.

Anyway, I wanted to add that I started having some problems with mine as well. Yellowing leaves without any real change in watering. I took a look inside the can amd repotted mine. It was definitely running out of room. The yellowing has curbed but the concern now is that it's blooming all over the place. Either means it's really happy or it's prepping for a crash landing. I just wanted to add my experience so we can compare notes, heh. Definitely didn't want it to be a thread hijack. Best of luck with yours, Mike!

 

[badatusernames]

He most certainly is, lol! I bought a chojubai start last fall an dug in to his blogs etc. It's super thorough but at times a bit overwhelming. I think that just speaks more to my being unfamiliar with the species than anything else.

Anyway, I wanted to add that I started having some problems with mine as well. Yellowing leaves without any real change in watering. I took a look inside the can amd repotted mine. It was definitely running out of room. The yellowing has curbed but the concern now is that it's blooming all over the place. Either means it's really happy or it's prepping for a crash landing. I just wanted to add my experience so we can compare notes, heh. Definitely didn't want it to be a thread hijack. Best of luck with yours, Mike!

They're odd plants that do odd things. Very very common (as in, just assume they all have it) for them to have a disease that causes all their leaves to yellow and fall off, but it doesn't hurt the tree and it leafs out again afterwards. I've had them flower pretty heavily at all times of year.

 

[jandslegate]

They're odd plants that do odd things. Very very common (as in, just assume they all have it) for them to have a disease that causes all their leaves to yellow and fall off, but it doesn't hurt the tree and it leafs out again afterwards. I've had them flower pretty heavily at all times of year.

Cool, thank you for that. Im letting the flowers stay at the moment but I was unsure if I should remove them to conserve energy. I'm totally fine with letting it just do it's thing though.

 

[badatusernames]

Cool, thank you for that. Im letting the flowers stay at the moment but I was unsure if I should remove them to conserve energy. I'm totally fine with letting it just do it's thing though.

Take them off as the begin to turn into fruit, other than that I think it's fine to keep them. Would be interested to hear other people's opinions, but that's my understanding!

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Depends on ones goals.

Qiunce in some ways are like azaleas. Very tough if handled right, prone to issues if not.

Quince are more of a prima donna than azaleas in those cases as they are prone to lots of fungul disease and attacks), including on the fruit (Brown rot, leaf and fire blight and attack by nematodes creating root knots). Also quince mostly carry an apple mosaic virus, which checkers the leaves at times. (Try to keep Apple family roseacae trees away from the quinces)

We’ve at least of a dozen of these little plantlike critters roaming the pots of the backyard and 7-8 cultivars from Chojobai to double take quinces. (Not counting starts….a self inflicted situation that has been made worse because when we prune and stick cuttings into the media of the quinces). Here a few…



Quince will also yellow older leaves similar to azalea. Older leaves are most prone to fungi in my experience being down on the branch more protected from the sun and wind

Our regime is pretty much hands off. We do not crowd the plants. Some cultivars are prince more often to accentuate the gnarly character of the plant…. we like gnarly.

cheers
DSD sends