Tag: Flowering Quince

Instagramming My Garden

Posted on by Kimsmithdesigns

Running around like crazy today and in need of a post to fill my 6 o’clock time slot, I had a few moments of fun instagramming in my garden, but oh my, does it need a good weeding! And by the way, our garden truly smells like how you might imagine heaven would smell. My book on garden design, Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities!, is chock-a-block full of information on how to create a fragrant garden–a garden that will keep you wrapped in beautiful scents from early spring through autumn.

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Milkweed Seedpod ©Kim Smith 2014

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Japanese Flowering Quince â€˜Toyo-Nishiki’

Posted on by Kimsmithdesigns

Please join me Wednesday, March 14,  at 10:30 for my lecture The Pollinator Garden presented by the Arlington Garden Club.

I am in the process of organizing photos for my upcoming season of garden design lectures and am enjoying looking over the past year in photos. This was my first year with the Fujifilm x100 and the photo of the flowering quince below was one of the first photos I took with the x100. I do love this camera!

Chaenomeles speciosa ‘Toyo-Nishiki’

Coaxing Winter Blooms

From mid-February on is the recommended time to prune members of the copious Roseaceae (Rose family) and their cut branches create stunning arrangements. The bare limbs dotted with five-petalled blossoms are particularly evocative juxtaposed against the cool, low light of winter. I am picturing the plum rose of Prunus cerasifera ‘Thundercloud,’ the vivid pink of peach blossoms, the elegant sparkling white blossoms of apricot trees (Prunus armeniaca), and the brilliant fiery red-orange ‘Texas Scarlet’ Japanese flowering quince illuminating the rooms in which they are placed. I have to say my favorite of favorites is Chaenomeles speciosa ‘Toyo-Nishiki,’ with buds swollen and ready to burst by mid-winter and flowering in multiple hues of white, rose, and apricot pink, the beauty of their blossoms emphasized by the sharply zigzagging branches.

Note: Flowering quince provides nectar for northward migrating hummingbirds. It is not too early to put out your hummingbird feeders.

More information about Chaenomoles ‘Toyo-Nishiki’ may be found in Chapter Three, “Planting in Harmony with Nature,” Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities!