This is a post I’ve been meaning to get around too but have put off due to the need to search for old photos. However Phil found some and even wrote the text for me so I couldn’t really leave it on the back burner any longer 🙂

This is the story of a rather heavy trunked Quince that Phil has been playing with for the last 13 years. Over to Phil…..

I collected this quince from an old garden in Bangor co Down in spring 2000 . It was lifted along the side of the driveway from a small bed . There was a smaller one with it but it did not survive the lift , after lifting it I potted it up in a large round container in a free draining  mix it lived here for a couple of years to get it settled with just general pruning from time to time.

[A few photos of Phil putting the quince in a temp pot to await a proper repot with Robert Porch a few days later. Look how skinney he is back then :-)]

In autumn 2002  during a workshop with Robert Porch it was taken out of the large container and put into a large training pot.

And at this stage it had some of the branches removed and the first placement of the remaining  branches. it lived in this pot  up until 2008 , with very little work done apart from pruning from time to time . 

First Branch placement in Spring 2003

It was repotted in spring 2009 into a smaller more manageable pot . Which it is still in at present time . It stayed at Ian’s house up until I got a house with a garden in 2010. And had very little work done, only general pruning as well as all the flower buds removed from the tree as soon as they appeared to let more energy go to branch structure . [Phil says very little work, but It was I who was watering and feeding and pruning it for 7 years!! 😛 ]

At a club meeting in April 2009

March 2010

February 2011

I will worry about flowering after I have built the tree . In the summer of 2012 I was doing a workshop with Robert porch and we thinned out the branches removing what was not needed etc .

Then in spring of 2013 I wired the whole tree and styled it . Looking at it, its branches look more like a c conifer than a deciduous tree but with this styling I was looking to open the pads up more than they were. over the next few years my aim is to have the branches reverting to the deciduous style rising up .I also aim to build up the ramification on the tree through clip and grow , if anyone has any hints or tips on building up ramification  on a quince I would like to hear them .

I was thinking about getting wallsall Ceramic to make a new pot for it . I saw a glaze I liked on a pot that Peter Snart from Willowbog Bonsai had over with him at the last bonsai school. However, over the last few weeks I have been looking at different pics of quince and just seeing the different pot colours. This made me change my mind from my original thought which was a rusty coloured pot which would have tied in with the bark.  Peter also had a cream one that looked rather nice against the tree ,  I am also drawn to a blue pot which would look nice against the deep red flowers of the tree but I will leave this for a bit more thought .

If anyone wants to do a few virtuals of pots work away as I would be interested in peoples views. 

I wrote this for posting on face book about a week ago but have had to add this bit on due to the fact that Robert was over during again and I took advantage of this and did a workshop with him which, as always, was very informative.  We looked at the quince again and we came to the conclusion that with a few tweaks we could improve the image of the tree. This was done with small upwards movements in the tips of the branches making big improvements to the tree . We also decided on the removal of one side branch and another back branch to be removed later in the year. We  looked at a few ways to improve the surface roots of the tree through different processes.

I will feed the tree this year with Japanese rapeseed cakes about 18 -25 of them around the pot with a 4-6 week replenishment . I will also use a foliar feeding programme that was originally devised by Dave Hannah and tweaked a bit by myself to suit my own needs. Using fish emulsion week one, seaweed extract week three , and foliaire week five, I have used this foliar feeding programme for the last three seasons with great results the only draw back being with all the organic material getting sprayed over the tree the bark and branches especially the jin and shari can get a build up of algae quicker than normal. But the results are worth it .

More to follow as and when the tree progresses.

Phil Aka ‘two fingers ‘