How to Prune a Quince Tree and How to Treat Scale

The quince, like many fruit trees, puts out lots of branches that shoot skyward. It also likes shooting from the base -- its natural form is more a thicket than a tree. While quite picturesque, a tall thicket isn't easy to collect fruit from, so growers tend to prune to a vase shape. The vase shape allows air circulation through the middle of the tree, which reduces some diseases, and makes it easier to deal with the fruit. Quince trees should be pruned in autumn or winter, when they are dormant. I decided to wait until most of the leaves were gone from my tree before I started, last weekend.

I grew up with plum trees and feel confident to prune them, but quinces, being pome fruit like apples and pears, are a little trickier. They fruit on year-old spurs, which you have to be careful not to cut off. Fortunately, these spurs are quite distinctive. They are 10-15 cm long, somewhat flattened, and the tip is broader than the rest of the twig. You can see one in the photo of scale below, pointing to the right. Branches, of course, taper to the tip.

For the last few years, I have been (roughly) following pruning instructions from the Gardening Australia article about quinces. Here is my version of that pruning method:

Year One

1. Plant your sapling. We'd do this in autumn to allow the tree to develop a good root system ahead of the summer heat. I'd prune it fairly hard, but not so hard that I can't tell whether it's survived!
2. In late winter, prune to a single short trunk. While the orchardist in the article gives his trees a very short trunk, 60cm, he probably isn't picking up footballs, chickens or anything else from under his trees. I think 1m or more is a better trunk height for a tree in a home garden, but it depends a bit on your height and what you expect to be seeking under your tree, as well as how high you can reach to pick the fruit.

Year Two

There should be 3-5 healthy branches growing near the top of the trunk. Prune off all the rest, then shorten these framework branches to 50cm, with an outward-facing bud at the top of each. This should give the plant a Y-shape when you look at it from the side, and this is your vase shape.

Subsequent Years

1. Don't cut off the stubby little fruiting spurs!
2. Remove any diseased or dead wood.
3. Remove all of the upright branches inside the vase at their base.
4. Prune any side branches that have developed on the trunk or base of the tree.
5. Remove any branches that cross others.
6. Shorten the remaining branches to 50 cm.

That looks better, doesn't it? Though I feel I can take a bit more off, now I've had a good look at this picture -- I think the tree is starting to look splayed. Quinces are heavy fruit and a good crop (which is still unlikely on my tree, I fear) could cause branches to break.

This year, I've found I could remove an older framework branch as a new branch had grown in the exact spot I wanted. The older branch had zigzagged.

My tree has had another problem this year: scale, caught from the next door neighbour's fig tree. Scale are sap-sucking insects that live on the branches, and for protection cover themselves with a hard shell, which makes them look like limpets. They are farmed by ants for the honeydew they secrete, which also has the side-effect of feeding sooty mould. Neither the scale nor the mould have really affected the tree's production or health, as far as I can tell, but over time they would.

The commercial treatment for scale is White Oil, which is a petrochemical you use diluted. Mum tells me that her Dad used the washing water from the washing machine on his fruit trees. Probably any oil or soap will work, but here is my recipe, cut down from this one:

In a 500ml spray bottle, put 8ml vegetable oil and 2ml dish-washing liquid. Pour in 500ml water and shake to mix. Spray liberally on scale. The oil and detergent apparently smother the scale insect's breathing apparatus, and it's a useful recipe to try on any sap-sucking insect.

Chook Dome Maintenance

After its five years of service, it was time to have a really good look at the chook dome. The UV-stabilised plastic twine I had used for bracing (following the original instructions in Linda Woodrow's book) had not worked well, as the chooks often tripped on it, and now it was starting to shred. When I untied it, I found that a couple of the joints had lost their wiring, so that was my first job. An intact joint is shown below.


The cross-bracing didn't seem to me to be necessary with my small-diameter dome, so I decided to just strengthen the upper joints with the good sections of twine.


I couldn't cover the lower joints without removing the netting, which seemed a bit much, as I wanted to move the girls in to their dome the same day.

What was the rush? I'd seen Annie sitting on wet ground. They only do this when they are afflicted with mites, to cool down their itchy undersides. While the girls had been mite-free for months, I think the butcher-bird I saw stealing their scraps a fortnight ago might have left them a return gift. After I had caught each girl and subjected her to the indignity of the spray-on parasite treatment, she was popped into the restored dome and set to work in my garden.


For more information on the structure and purpose of my chook dome, see this earlier post.

However, I am not the only creator of structures in the back yard. I suspect this is an artillery bunker, but the information is Classified.

Cowan Creek Bushwalk

Last Saturday our family went on a bushwalk from Berowra to Mount Kuring-Gai Stations via Cowan Creek. Cowan Creek is a tributary of the Hawkesbury River. It was a perfect winter's day with pale blue skies.

The path down from Berowra to Waratah Gully is rather uneven and we were puzzled by the amount of fallen timber. The trees weren't big, but it seemed like a lot of them had been knocked over. Something to do with burning off? The undergrowth was at most hip height, and at the start mainly a kind of grevillea (I think; a lot of our healthland plants are hard to tell apart) and a sweet-scented plant with small five-petalled white flowers (Woollsia pungens, the Snow Wreath). The only flower I saw that I knew was Epacris longiflora, the Native Fuchsia.

As we came closer to the gully floor we could hear water running over rocks. Such a lovely sound! We crossed the creek where once there had been a bridge, and continued alongside the creek into a patch of rainforest. Some of the trees here had the distinctive bark of coachwoods (Ceropetalum apetalum, which have smooth bark blotched white, grey and chestnut. Again, all the trees seemed very young, with diameters under 10cm. I suspect that this gully might have been entirely burnt out by the 1994 bushfires; most of Kuring-Gai Chase National Park was damaged.


We had out lunch on Waratah Bay, not far from the abandoned barge. The sun was welcome after the cool of the rainforest.


Afterwards, our walk continued southwards, up Cowan Creek (which looks more like a river to me, being a couple of hundred metres wide). This was the view north, towards the Hawkesbury. The vegetation is the dry sclerophyll forest typical of the Sydney region.


This was the view upstream:


It was lovely to walk along the creek. Most of the track was about 10m above the waterline. We stopped at every inlet to fortify ourselves with chocolate, and eventually we reached the uphill track to Kuring-gai Station. It was a stiff climb for the children (and, truth be told, for the unfit parents), but there were good views from a resting point halfway up. We ate more chocolate, and I annoyed the family by exclaiming over various flowers.

It was on the latter part of the bushwalk that I noticed NSW Christmas Bush growing everywhere. Unfortunately we also saw an unknown weed plant everywhere. No idea what it was, and my photos didn't come out, but it was doing very well indeed, growing on long canes to 2m with pointed leaves, and very hairy. On the other hand, there was a cream wattle (probably Acacia ulicifolia) flowering in great swathes near Mount Kuring-gai, scenting the air.

This pairing of weathered sandstone and gum trees is typical of coastal Sydney:


The walk was about 9km and a bit strenuous, but our five-year-old and nine-year-old did manage without whingeing until we were almost finished. The hill at the end is not difficult, merely long, and paths are generally in good repair. It is a popular walk and is impossible to get lost on, there being only one track for most of the route. The water views and variety of vegetation make it very enjoyable. A good family day-walk, with easy access by public transport. I'd suggest going in another month. It was really too early for most of our spring wildflowers, but the Boronia was out. The mauve-pink really stands out against our grey-green bush!


Note: While I've marked the photo as B. mollis, I now think it might well have been B. ledifolia -- the leaves were long rather than round.

My Day Off

I took a day off for myself these school holidays, and what would a gardening-and-book nut do on her day off? She would visit a place that has been on the to-visit list for quite a while: Florilegium. A whole shop, just for gardening books... what might I grab?


Florilegium isn't far from the cafes of Glebe Point Road, where I had lunch (and afternoon tea afterwards). It's in a tiny corner shop which was once the Demeter Bakery, but now has warm white walls, polished concrete flooring, and a stairway to heaven more books downstairs, including some antiquarian treasures. I loved the feel of the shop and of course the titles!

Perhaps naively, I had thought that the obsessives restricted themselves to cultivation of roses, bromeliads and orchids. You expect to see books on those genera. But a whole book on the genus Sorbus? Yes, you'll find one. But then, surely every genus deserves some obsessive person to write about it...

I whiled away at least an hour exploring this cornucopia of gardening books! But in the end, I settled on four titles:

• Edna Walling's The Happiest Days of my Life ($18), a memoir of her time building a holiday shack near the Great Ocean Road.
• Helen Proudfoot's Gardens in Bloom: Jocelyn Brown and her Sydney Gardens of the '30s and '40s ($30). Brown and Walling were active in the same period and as I have a 1940s house, I am interested in how to bring something of that time into my own garden.
• Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury, Designing With Plants ($35). I was introduced to Piet Oudolf by the blogosphere and find his work fascinating. Again, it will be interesting to see how I can translate his ideas to Sydney, where the seasons are far less distinct than in the Netherlands, and where the native plant material is vastly different. I asked Gil, the proprietor, whether anyone was working in a similar style here and he was able to point out one or two designers to me in Contemporary Australian Garden Design by John Patrick & Jenny Wade... but I didn't buy that book!
• After the glowing review at May Dreams Gardens, I couldn't pass up Rick Darke's expanded edition of William Robinson's classic The Wild Garden ($39.95). Looks like I have a bit of reading to do.

I felt the prices were very reasonable, and of course was very impressed by Gil's immediate grasp of what I meant and what I wanted to see. He travels to all sorts of gardening shows, and if you aren't able to come to Sydney, you can order by e-mail. But I know I'll be visiting the bookshop again.

A Walk in the Back Yard

There are seedlings being kept warm on the concrete near the back door. It's time to bring out my little electric greenhouse to keep some of them warm, I think.


The fuzzy stuff above is fennel. Maybe I should plant them out today. Below are some brassicas: kale and pak choy.


During the day I move the seedlings to a sunnier spot under the carport, next to my pot of Dichondra and Aloe.


At the edge of the vegetable patch, a sweet potato has twined through the lemon grass. It has frost damage this week.


On the other hand this pink silverbeet is quite happy with conditions.


The sorrel is also fine. You can see where I have been picking the outer leaves for the chooks.


The young cabbages are looking good amongst the fumitory. I have to be careful when weeding fumitory, as it tends to bring other plants with it.


The pak choy is all self-sown. I've seen lettuces in here too.


The broad beans are almost ready to flower.


And here are my 'Purple Podded Dutch' peas coming up!


On the other hand, the quince tree has a bad case of scale and sooty mould. Once the leaves drop, I'll use a detergent mixture to remove the scale. My neighbours are having the same problems on some of their fruit trees, so I'll pass the recipe on once I've tried it.


I had no idea blueberry buds were pink; my last plant never grew. This one is in a pot for safe-keeping.


But what is this? Signs of habitation?


Even of cookery!


The kids like the teepee, but they've been riding bikes today instead.

In Praise of Gardening

The Geek has drawn my attention to this touching post by Derek Powazek, about his father, himself, and why they like gardening.

I'm not sure that the Geek has noticed that Derek is himself a geek -- who likes gardening. Do you think my Geek might be catching the disease?

Another List of Gardening Activities

One day, my horrible garden sheds will be demolished, which means that the contents have to go somewhere else.

Have you ever looked at your garden shed and contemplated having to pack it? It occurred to me that disintegrating bags of lime and blood-and-bone are not packable, so I did something radical on the weekend... I used them up! The lime went on my vegetable patch and the native plants got the blood-and-bone -- it's their favourite fertiliser.

The Geek and I put up some more pea-netting and the Sprig helped me plant 'Purple Podded Dutch' peas under it. I'm still deciding where to plant the snow peas, as I never have much luck with them.

The new pea-netting used to hang at the back of our house, where I had a small brick-edged garden bed and a 'Nelly Kelly' grafted passionfruit. Now I don't know if this happens with all of them, but the stock suckered unstoppably and inevitably the graft died off. The stock has been going strong for years (still suckering madly), but it doesn't produce edible passionfruit. The same thing happened to Dad's 'Nelly Kelly', so I won't buy one again unless someone gives me a very good reason. But with the wall slated to become an interior wall, there was no reason to waste my netting on an ugly stock any more, was there? And those bricks could be reused, so out they came. The boys had a lovely afternoon building with them.

My cut finger has prevented me from planting up punnets for a couple of weeks, so I turned to that next. I had to plant out a few beetroots and cabbages, and found that the bed was full of volunteer lettuce and bok choy seedlings -- which is great, seeing as I have missed out on planting those things recently!

Seeds planted:

• Beetroot 'Globe Free' and Heirloom Mix
• Cabbage 'Mini'
• Florence Fennel
• Kale 'Tuscan Black'
• Leek 'King Richard'
• Lettuce 'Yellow Leaf' and 'Forellenschuss'
• Onion 'Borrettana'
• Pak Choy 'Red F1'
• Silverbeet 'Five Colour'
• Spring Onion 'Evergreen'

The one thing we didn't get to was building a teepee out of the pruned branches you see at the top of the post. Next week...