Once in awhile something utterly amazing and astonishing
happens in the garden. This one took my breath away! I’ll begin at the
beginning:
In 2002, my husband and I were walking in a wild wooded area
on the campus of a local university where I was taking classes. It was a
beautiful, oddly warm day in late March, and we had been lured into the woods
by several large, pink blooming bushes. The gnarly, thorny shrubs were laden
with the most amazing fragrant flowers! We coveted this strange bush, so asked
the groundskeeper if we could dig some suckers to take home. He laughed and
gave his permission. When we came back with a spade and bucket a few days
later, we dug five shoots for our vacant lot at home. I might also mention we
dug a few other unknown shrubs and a lilac that was no more than a twig.
2011
When we got home, I planted all the babies on the southwest
corner of the lot on the far side of the berm. The shoots of the
later-identified service berries took off, one of them growing over forty feet
high in the next ten years…But back to our saga of the pink bloomer.
One of the five pink bloomers died; I mourned its passing.
After about five or six years, the other four began to bloom in late March. This
early blooming amazed me, so I began watching the shrub in winter. I discovered
that the buds began to swell in January, when the ground was frozen solid and
spring was just a dream. I took to garden walking in winter, using this still
unidentified shrub as an excuse.
2011
One garden guest identified the shrub as a flowering almond
and I took her word for it until I was at a friend’s house in 2011. Connie was
showing me her flowering almond and
it was a completely different plant! I asked her how sure she was, and she said
100%. Now my curiosity was peaked and I decided to research on the internet.
It’s hard to find something when you don’t know its name, but I came across the
flowering plum and it looked similar. I was once again sort of satisfied.
2013
Meanwhile, the bushes became scraggly tangles of thorny
branches; big and ungainly, as we stopped pruning them. I had noticed that the
blooms diminished after we trimmed. The neighbor told us the corner bush made
backing out of her driveway a hazard, so Jorge removed it in 2010. Now we were
down to three, although shoots still appear where the old bush once stood.
Yesterday, we were back in that corner trimming the service
berry when I looked into the bush and saw an apple stuck to one of the
branches. A second apple was on another branch. Being the idiot I sometimes am,
I said, “What’s that?” and grabbed both of them. My husband and I examined this
mystery. They were green and hard with the size and appearance of a small
apple. It was then I fully became conscious of the fact this guy was no
flowering plum.
When I got into the house, I cut one in half and examined
its interior. It looked very similar to an apple in that it was full of pips. A
plum would have had one pit. After a half hour on the internet, I discovered we
had three flowering quinces, whose fruit makes absolutely delicious jams,
jellies and marmalades! Now I’m thinking about asking the university
groundskeeper if I can wander the woods to pick quinces in another few weeks.
Quince Photos (taken24 hours after cutting, thus browned interior)
Now that we have identified this mysterious shrub, we know
to prune the dead wood in April, immediately after it blooms. I can put up with
the unremarkable foliage and the thorns knowing that March will bring all those
lovely blooms and October a luscious fruit for preserves.
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