Quince

What it is

Flowering quince is a tough, deciduous shrub that has been in Southern gardens for well over a century — you will still find enormous old ones at abandoned home sites, blooming away with nobody to see them. That is the best recommendation a plant can have.

It is grown for a few weeks of flower on bare wood at the very start of the year, and then it steps back and behaves.

Where it fits

Put it where you will see it from indoors in February, because that is when it does its work — outside a kitchen window, along a driveway, at the end of a view.

For the rest of the year it is a competent green shrub. That means it wants a spot where “competent green shrub” is enough: in a mixed border where something else takes over in summer, as an informal hedge, or at the back of a bed.

Do not plant it alone in the middle of a front lawn, where it has to carry a whole season by itself.

Care

Full sun gives you the most flower, though it will bloom in part sun. Once it is established it is genuinely drought-tolerant, and it is not particular about soil as long as water moves through.

Prune right after it finishes flowering. It sets next year’s buds on the growth it makes this summer, so a late-summer or winter trim costs you the show. Thin out a few of the oldest stems at ground level every couple of years to keep it open rather than shearing the outside.

Cut branches

Cut a few stems in January when the buds have swelled, bring them inside, and put them in water. They will open a week or two early in the warmth of the house — which is the oldest trick in Southern gardening and still the best argument for planting one.