Repot this Japanese Flowering Quince this Fall??

[RobertB]

I bought this Japanese quince this spring from a local botanical garden sale. I saw good potential in a future shohin tree. I am currently trying to bring in the branches so i can develop taper and ramification. I pruned it some initially, just to fit on the bench, then trimmed back the new shoots in mid may to a few nodes, then decided to prune again back to the closest green to the base on some branches and back to two nodes on others. I tried to leave some new growth as i know its mid summer and im not sure if this is the best time for heavy pruning on these. I have seen with other quinces that i have that branches can die if they are pruned back to hard or not pruning back to some green.

Question is, should I repot this quince in the fall? I want to work it into a bonsai pot. If I repot in the fall, how much root pruning can i do? Can I remove 2/3 rds of the rootball and place in a shallow grow box? Can I bare root the remaining 1/3rd? Half bare root, like you would a juniper? Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

The other quince I have that i mentioned of, i repotted this spring, after flower. I mostly just removed loose nursery soil and bunched up the rest of the roots into a grow box. I was trying to be very careful with as I am new to these.

Just after purchased.



I also have successfully taken 4 layers off this plant this season. All are doing well and growing. This is the plant now.



I plant to try and get the finished plant roughly half this size and full and ramified.

 

[RobertB]

a couple more pics

 

[0soyoung]

Better to repot in Aug/Sep than in spring, IMHO.

 

[bonsaichile]

Better to repot in Aug/Sep than in spring, IMHO.

Interesting. I have been thinkung about that for other species (do some root work on a bigtooth maple I have in the ground, returning it to the ground). I would love to hear your rationale for Fall repotting

 

[Shinjuku]

I just picked up a quince on sale for $6.00 at the local nursery, and I’m reading about it now. I found this article from International Bonsai on quince. The top of page 4 has some rationale for autumn vs spring repotting. Hope this helps.

http://www.internationalbonsai.com/files/1708315/uploaded/flowering_quince_article.pdf

 

[M. Frary]

Better to repot in Aug/Sep than in spring, IMHO.

For some localations yes but other places not so much.

 

[River's Edge]

I bought this Japanese quince this spring from a local botanical garden sale. I saw good potential in a future shohin tree. I am currently trying to bring in the branches so i can develop taper and ramification. I pruned it some initially, just to fit on the bench, then trimmed back the new shoots in mid may to a few nodes, then decided to prune again back to the closest green to the base on some branches and back to two nodes on others. I tried to leave some new growth as i know its mid summer and im not sure if this is the best time for heavy pruning on these. I have seen with other quinces that i have that branches can die if they are pruned back to hard or not pruning back to some green.

Question is, should I repot this quince in the fall? I want to work it into a bonsai pot. If I repot in the fall, how much root pruning can i do? Can I remove 2/3 rds of the rootball and place in a shallow grow box? Can I bare root the remaining 1/3rd? Half bare root, like you would a juniper? Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

The other quince I have that i mentioned of, i repotted this spring, after flower. I mostly just removed loose nursery soil and bunched up the rest of the roots into a grow box. I was trying to be very careful with as I am new to these.

Just after purchased.

View attachment 203161

I also have successfully taken 4 layers off this plant this season. All are doing well and growing. This is the plant now.

View attachment 203162

I plant to try and get the finished plant roughly half this size and full and ramified.

Lots of great Quince information on Crateagus Bonsai by Michael Hagedorn if you have questions.

 

[0soyoung]

Interesting. I have been thinkung about that for other species (do some root work on a bigtooth maple I have in the ground, returning it to the ground). I would love to hear your rationale for Fall repotting

For rationale, see

• Douglas Fir Repotting Experiment
• Lodgepole Pine Repotting Experiment
• Cork Oak Repotting Experiment
• Zelkova Repotting Experiment
• Redbud Repotting Experiment

The reader's digest rendition is that all temperate species (if not also tropical too) exhibit a distinctive change in their growth pattern shortly after the passage of the summer solstice which is evidenced by the radial growth rate. Trees have hardened foliage to power root growth during this time (after the summer solstice). The issue is then how well the species does at limiting transpiration losses. I believe all conifers and also waxy leaved angiosperms (so called 'deciduous' or flowering species, cork oaks, azaleas, quince, and rose being 'waxy leafed' examples) do almost as well. Species such as 'Japanese maples' loose considerable moiture through their cuticles and will be sensitive to potential desiccation. In my climate, relative humidity is rarely less than 50% though on occasion it can drop as low as 15% to 20% in late afternoons.

More detail regarding chaenomeles specifically is that I grow 4 different varieties, including Toyo Nishiki but not chochubai, and my experience is that it is difficult to not dislodge flower buds when repotting in spring before blooming, very dangerous/risky to do so after blooming, and easy/routine to do so in Aug/Sep.

 

[0soyoung]

For some localations yes but other places not so much.

Such as Steamboat Springs and Aspen, CO. Nome, AK and anywhere else that the first freeze date is prior to the fall equinox?
Or are you alluding to the impossibility of anyone matching my horticultural genius?

 

[M. Frary]

Such as Steamboat Springs and Aspen, CO. Nome, AK and anywhere else that the first freeze date is prior to the fall equinox?
Or are you alluding to the impossibility of anyone matching my horticultural genius?

I dont know anyone close to your horticultural genius.
I was referring to places with early winters. You got it.
I would rather not report anything here too late either. We can see hard freezes in October here.

 

[Stan Kengai]

@RobertB Robert the best time to repot flowering quince is at the end of summer, as the temperatures begin to fall. For me, just north of Atlanta, that's typically right after Labor day. This timing allows for 6 to 8 weeks before first frost. For you in coastal Alabama, your winters are mild enough that you could repot any time in the fall.

For your first repotting out of nursery soil, you can remove half of the root ball and completely bare root. In the nursery can, most of the feeder roots will be on the sides and bottom of the pot. So they will be removed when repotting. Your new container should just fit the root ball because you are trying to get feeder roots closer to the base of the trunk. You don't want the roots to grow outward, but to ramify on the interior of the rootball. If you are happy with the branch structure and your goal is ramification, use a smaller grain soil. Freezing over the winter is okay, but protect from hard freezes, under 25F.

Regarding ramification, flowering quince not named Chojubai do not ramify very much. They have a natural open branch structure. You can get some ramification with defoliation and timely branch pruning, but mostly, they throw out shoots at the end of branches and the base and roots. Be sure to remove basal and root shoots.

 

[RobertB]

@RobertB Robert the best time to repot flowering quince is at the end of summer, as the temperatures begin to fall. For me, just north of Atlanta, that's typically right after Labor day. This timing allows for 6 to 8 weeks before first frost. For you in coastal Alabama, your winters are mild enough that you could repot any time in the fall.

For your first repotting out of nursery soil, you can remove half of the root ball and completely bare root. In the nursery can, most of the feeder roots will be on the sides and bottom of the pot. So they will be removed when repotting. Your new container should just fit the root ball because you are trying to get feeder roots closer to the base of the trunk. You don't want the roots to grow outward, but to ramify on the interior of the rootball. If you are happy with the branch structure and your goal is ramification, use a smaller grain soil. Freezing over the winter is okay, but protect from hard freezes, under 25F.

Regarding ramification, flowering quince not named Chojubai do not ramify very much. They have a natural open branch structure. You can get some ramification with defoliation and timely branch pruning, but mostly, they throw out shoots at the end of branches and the base and roots. Be sure to remove basal and root shoots.

Stan and all, thank you for your responses. I have read Crateagus blogs backwards and forwards. I just couldn't find much about repotting nursery stock, bare rooting and how much you can remove (i.e. half the root ball). I did notice during my last repot on the other quince that they have very fine roots and had to read to treat like an azeala just cutting wedges into the rootball.

I agree that ramification seems like a challenge but Im going to try. I dont have a Chojubi yet and was a few weeks late to place my order with Brent. I plan on buying one this coming yr from him though and starting from there.

Thank you again for the response.

 

[shinmai]

I just picked up a quince on sale for $6.00 at the local nursery, and I’m reading about it now. I found this article from International Bonsai on quince. The top of page 4 has some rationale for autumn vs spring repotting. Hope this helps.

http://www.internationalbonsai.com/files/1708315/uploaded/flowering_quince_article.pdf

Thank you so much for sharing this link. I have seven Japanese flowering quinces, all "Texas Scarlet", that I bought for nine bucks each at Home Depot in June and repotted immediately. All are in 7" round plastic grow pots, in akadama-based inorganic. This article is a tremendous resource, and particularly timely for me. Two in particular are rather nice, and will eventually become a semi- and a full cascade, and a couple more that will eventually be pretty nice informal uprights as well. Interestingly [at least to me], most if not all of the seven have root hairs showing through the drainage grates in the bottom of the pots, so I must be getting good root development.

 

[Lazylightningny]

Per @Osoyoung suggestion, I recently bare rooted 15 of my stock. Several junipers, a blueberry, 2 spruces, a couple of azaleas, a larch, a winterberry, and 2 cotoneasters. All are doing fine except one of the cotoneasters which got a fungal infection and was plagued by a plethora of vermin. I water them twice a day and have most of them out in this 96 degree sun we're having.

 

[RobertB]

So I bare rooted this quince and cut the root ball in half on Friday. Two days later and all the newer growth is shriveling up and dyeing. I cut the new growth off yesterday and placed plant in full shade for some time to recover. I guess I went a little hard on the roots or maybe I was supposed to cut it back pretty hard at the same time.

 

[shinmai]

My two cents: the reason that a lot of books, such as The Art of Flowering Bonsai, state categorically to repot quince in the fall is that they are ostensibly prone to nematode infestation, and less likely to be infested in fall. I have found that somewhat puzzling, since if anything I would think they would be most likely to be in nursery soil if they were to be anywhere. [They're certainly not growing in an inorganic aggregate mix.]
While it is generally advisable to reduce foliage to some degree when repotting any non-conifer to restore balance if reducing the roots, personally I would not do a bare-root repot and do a hard cutback at the same time. Each event in itself is traumatic for the tree, and doing them simultaneously can be too much. As you noted, they do have fine roots, and can be so matted when you first take them out of a nursery pot that you think you have an azalea in your hands. The fineness of the roots is especially an issue if you bare-root using a high pressure hose, because you can easily blast away a lot of fine root hairs. This is, I believe, partly the reason why doing a repot right after the vernal equinox is a good idea, in that it gives the tree a little time to regrow the fine roots lost in a repotting, water-blast or otherwise.
More broadly speaking, it is the injury to roots, both by pruning and by removing soil, that is the most critical issue in any repot. I believe the one over-riding exception to the 'rules' about timing is when you have something in a nursery pot or other crappy soil that stops draining, because then the risk from bad drainage outweighs the risk from handling the roots. I've had some success in such circumstances by placing the root mass in a bucket of water and soaking it, swishing it gently to remove soil, and then repeating the process until I feel I've 'de-gunked' as much as I can. I have then placed the tree in question in a colander, surrounding the root mass with an inorganic mix to encourage the continued development of fine roots. It seems to have worked well enough this summer that I'm comfortable with the idea of being more aggressive next spring. I think an 'off-cycle' repot or slip-pot should be predicated on doing as little as humanly possible to the roots while solving the soil problem, and then coming back at a later time when the roots have recovered.
Best of luck--sure hope it comes back for you.

 

[RobertB]

Well I was fairly aggressive with the roots. I definitly reduced the football by a little more than half and washed most of the nursery soil out. I did notice all the fine roots washing out with the soil.

The plant was pushing new growth which all pretty much started to die off a day after the repot. I cut it off and left only the leaves that had hardened off. The plant is in full shade and will probably remain until it looses its leaves. It's seeming to stabilize now as some of the newer growth that was left is flaring back out from being swriveled up. I'm sure the plant will be weak next year but if it lives it will be a success.

 

[shinmai]

I’d be interested in hearing how it fares in the spring. I think the new growth rebounding is a good sign.

 

[pweifan]

@RobertB Just curious how this Quince was doing going into the winter. Did it show signs of recovery? Are you hopeful for it this spring? I'm hoping so Please let us know. Thanks!

 

[RobertB]

It's already had three flushes of blooms this year. Not growing much yet but blooming it's heart out.

My lessons learned is I should have have pruned when I reported. All the shoots shriveled up a few days after the repot then I cut all the new growth off and placed in strong shade until it cooled off.

As for winter, we had none. It never got lower than 31 so I left on bench all winter.