Chaenomeles speciosa ‘Toyo-Nishiki’ by Missouri Botanical Garden
Chaenomeles “Toyo-Nishiki” by Rob’s Plants
Chaenomeles “Toyo-Nishiki” (Japanese Quince) by Gardenia
Flowering Quince ‘Toyo-Nishiki’ by Dave’s Garden
Toyo-Nishiki Flowering Quince* by Plant Finder
I lucked out and found a “Toyo-Nishiki” quince at Home Depot of all places. It really was not much to look at as it had 3-4 skinny trunks on it. I decided it was going to be a cascade after bring it home. The price was really cheap, so much the better. The next thing to do was select one of the trunks and chop off the rest. So I selected the best trunk and cut the rest of them off. I allowed the tree to continue to grow unchecked and kept cutting off the suckers as they popped up.
I took the tree to a local workshop (2009) where one of the new returning Japanese Bonsai Masters gave it a free tree analysis. The gentlemen spent the next 13 minutes explaining to the group that my idea of a Quince cascade was a complete waste of time and that they had never seen a cascade Quince. Quince were meant to be a clump style Bonsai and anything else would be pointless and future owners would not want to bother with the tree. Well he spent the time about clump quince etc. When he was done the person sitting next to me asked what I was going to do with tree. I leaned over and whispered to him that I was going to make into a cascade! They just laughed, my mentor asked me what I was going to do and I gave him same answer.
Sometime after the tree analysis I potted the tree up in a very tall dark green Sara Rayner pot. It was quite challenging to to secure the tree in the pot with the intention of turning it into a cascade. I was going to have to wire the single trunk with very heavy wire and would need to keep the tree from being pulled out of the pot by the force being placed on the wires. I decided to use a chop stick placed under the pot and attached bailing wires to the chopstick and fished the wires up through the drainage hole. The bailing wires were then attached to the root ball and secured. The chopstick was also large enough to extend beyond the sides of the pot, so I could use them to attach pulley wires and pull the main branch down. This idea worked out pretty good except for one thing, the wire kept slipping of the end of the chop stick. I solved the problem by using a small heavy piece of wired wrapped around the end of the chopstick. This prevented the pulley wire from slipping off. All the trunks were wired and the main trunk had 2 rounds of my heaviest aluminum wire. The rest of the branches were wired. I wanted the tree to slant down and to the right of the pot.
The tree was left alone for the next few years and allowed to grow where ever it wanted except for suckers which were cut off. More and more branches started to develop and these new branches were allowed to grow. I removed all of the original wiring in 2015 and the main trunk bounced up a little, but pretty much stayed where it was, not a true cascade, but a semi-cascade now. I rewired all of the smaller branches and placed them where they are today. I am continuing to let the tree grow and am trying to get it grow up over the main branches. My intentions are to develop a nice apex of these branches if I can.
I am so glad I did not listen to the visiting Japanese trained Bonsai Master and stuck to my original plan! I tell new Bonsai students they are going to be told to do a lot of things on their trees by different people of all abilities. It will be up to the new student to decided what they want to do with the their tree. The great thing about Bonsai their can be any number of ideas on what to do with a tree and they can all be correct, but you cannot do them all. Pick wisely or just might be making a mistake that you cannot take back.
Flowers are typically white-pinkish in color on this tree. Toyo-Nishiki quince are famous for having three different colors of flowers on the same tree. Red is the most difficult to find on them. I have not seen Red on this tree yet. Some published reports say it takes many years for Red to appear if at all.
Update 05-16-2021:
Here is a photo of the tree taken on 04-29-2021. This is most the tree has flowered ever. Down right gorgeous blooms, they started off white and changed over to whitish-pinkish colored blossoms.
Update 02-03-2020:
30% shade cloth was installed over the growing benches where this tree was located when the temperature started reaching 90% and above. The tree stopped growing along with all the other quince trees when the summer temperatures started getting really hot. The tree really like the shade cloth and started growing again for rest of the growing season right up into Oct. There was enough new growth that I was finally able to style the tree like I wanted with a nice dome shaped apex on the tree with these new branches. It is going to be exciting to see the new growth on the tree in 2020. Stupid raccoons kept knocking this tree of the growing bench and finally broke one of the feet of the pot. The pot had been previously damaged and now would not stand upright for long. A new wooden foot(garden stake) was used to keep the pot steady. I found the tree completely upside down with the pot sticking straight up in the air one day thanks to the raccoons. Somehow there were no broken branches, none. I am going to have to re-pot this tree soon as it is budding out in the garage. I spent the 6 hours today trying to find all the quince trees and move them to the end of the garage so I can move them in and out of the garage so they can get some sun. I still think I missed a couple of quince trees.
Here are some photos of the new design with the brand new branches that sprouted mid-summer after the shade cloth was installed. Some how the tree does look to good with out leaves and flowers.
Update 12-20-2018: The tree was restyled this summer and basically the branches were brought in closer to each other and compacted to make a smaller tree. The trunk of the tree is now starting to bark up. I have allowed the tree to grow unchecked during the summer and then I remove unwanted branches which is rarely done. All suckers are immediately cut off when noticed, you just basically pinch them off with your fingers. I cannot wait to see it in the spring. Each year the tree produces more and more flowers.
Update 05-08-2019: The tree survived the winter just fine in the garage and budded out early April and I had to move the tree into and out the garage numerous times to keep it from suffering damage to its tender buds. I took the tree down to the Denver Botanic Gardens greenhouses today and wired a couple of new branches into place and wired 2 old branches. Alas the Sara Rayner pot is broke and Sara is making a new pot similar in style but in a different color more suitable to the tree. The tree did not produce a lot of flowers this year. It was a poor year for flowers on all my quince for some reason. Still waiting for the elusive RED flowers to appear! I think the redesign of the tree into a more compact tree has really improved the tree a lot. Here is a new gallery of the tree:
Here is a photo of the tree in 2014:
Here are some photo’s of the tree taken 4/17/2016, quite a difference:
Here are some photo’s of three taken in March 25, 2017:
Internet Tree Gallery:
No mater what shape you make it’s alright as long you like it
I DON’T HAVE THE TREE any more. Your right though as long as the owner likes it that is all that MATTERS. I WAS A Beauty ESP. WHEN BLOOMING. I MIISS this tree really bad. there other tree I miss really bad to, but this one was a nice home-grown quince.