Why won't my flowering quince flower?

Well, it appeared to have had a face lift because it was not the site I saw a few years ago- oops!

Here's the site I originally found-
http://www.noivyleague.com/Pages/english_ivy.html

I just love this quote from the site:

"If the Ivy on your property seems too daunting and you do not feel you can afford to hire professional assistance, consider having a No Ivy League picnic for your friends and/or neighbors. Make it fun with prizes for longest vine, biggest root, etc. Have music. Have an Ivy-pun contest. Serve good food. Hey! How did folks raise all those barns!"

Luckily, the vines aren't that bad, here. Still, I need to try dabbing at the stuff that is persisting...it sounds like a great idea! Didn't see BrushBgon at the Home Depot. Where did you find it?
Diane

BrushBGon concentrate was purchased earlier in the year by me at Home Depot but the last batch I bought at Menards. My husband did pick up another jug of concentrate at a hardware store. I don't know if you have any Ace Hardware stores around your neck of the woods but that's where he picked some up. My friend said she got her concentrate at WalMart. I probably should have bought at WalMart as they are usually cheaper.

I was waiting for somebody to follow that link and mention the "No Ivy Leage" picnic. That's what made me remember that site. I hadn't visited that site in over a year but that stood out as completely ludicrous. Hmmm, my friends and family would just loooooove me if I had invited them over to help me eradicate the ivy that I planted a hundred plugs of. Oh I'd be real high on the popularity list for years for that one. I keep cracking up laughing every time I get the visual of me at WalMart buying prizes for the adult with the longest vine or the biggest root. They really do have a lot of great information at that site if you can get up off the floor from laughing at the mere suggestion of a "No Ivy League" picnic where one invites all of their closest friends, neighbors, and family and get back into your chair to get to your monitor to poke around.

YOU PLANTED 100 PLUGS!? Oh, MY! If only rogaine had worked in the first place!!!

Ace is not far from here. Since we are a semi-arid climate, it might be harder to find locally, though...brush needs water to grow and water is sorta scarce. (Did you ever think of sprinkler systems as creating a micro-climate?)

Menards--think there might be one in Boulder? The WalMart didn't carry it.

AH...a new quest. I'm out to hunt for the Holy Grail. "But first I must find a shrubbery," said the Knight Who Used to Say Nee! (Did you see Monty Python's Holy Grail?) ;)

I shall try to KILL the shrubbery--
Diane

Sorry Dianne, I am not and never have been a tv watcher so I haven't seen that movie. I do a lot of laundry... mountains of it, I scrub a lot of toilets... 5 of them, I help with a lot of homework at the kitchen table... I still work a little bit here and there in a real office with adults who can communicate productively who don't need their noses wiped...does any of this qualify me for anything? Oh yes... I kill a lot of plants too!

Now about those plugs- I started out with a tray of 12 but I liked them so much that I went back to buy more so they would fill in faster. At first the area looked a lot like my woods when we go in and clear buckthorn which is equivalent to a follicle challenged man's head with a bad transplant. Little sprigs of this or that sticking out amongst nothing would sum it up. That was short lived though. They filled in fast allrightie! I actually purchased more like 120 as I recall buying 10 trays. I'm not exactly a rocket scientist.

Hey, if you go to Menards, check out their bulbs. They are all on sale and most packs can be picked up for $2.99 to $4.99. I bought quite a few. I am a sick sick sick person to inflict this pain upon myself as they will all need to go in the ground. Oh...they had reblooming bearded iris too.

Yes, I thought of sprinkler systems. The thought lasted about as long as the nice man could give us the price quote of installing them below the freeze line all the way back about 1600' in several different directions. I all but grasped the wall while I gagged when he told me he was relatively sure he could get water to all areas in need for under 25k. It's been a while, his price might have been 35k. Like I said, that price quote was a real chest grabber.

Well, there IS something a small yard is good for, then...less expensive installation of sprinklers! Yards here are small because water is a precious commodity. Acreages have only small lawns...the rest is mowed weeds, usually. We've always had sprinkler systems so that we can water at 4:00 A.M. and make the most of our water. We spent 3 yrs. in PA and were shocked that they rarely needed to get out a hose to water! We missed the sunshiny winters in CO though and headed back. I guess it's whatever you're used to that you can handle best,huh?

Monty Python's Holy Grail was a film from back in the 70's;) Don't know if it has ever been onTV. Would be great if we never watched TV, but when you have a child who was overdosed and as a result cannot walk or talk and Mr. Rogers is her favorite thing, you do watch PBS. I put my Masters Degree in the desk drawer after she was born and completely changed my life to take care of her. Never looked back! Joy has many different forms;) Hoping your day is joyful, too:)
Diane

I'm wondering of you're pruning it at any other time than late spring?

Flowering quince blooms on old wood (usually last year's growth) and if you prune back too far or too late you may be sacrificing wood that would have bloomed for you.

I'm looking for ways to increase bloom on my 'Cameo' which isn't terribly floriferous, some stems not at all. if I had removed the 'wrong' growths, I'd have stems with no flowers, but would have had bloom if I hadn't cut those parts away.

Just a thought.

Robert.

Eeek! Robert! You resurrected this thread and all of my English Ivy misadventures are back to the top.

My quince was eaten by deer. All gone. They took care of the pruning and went a little bit too far.

LOL.

Ooopsie.

Robert.

Just an update, though...have never pruned the bush and it bloomed on two of the branches last year! It isn't perfect, but it's something! I think it was the coffee grounds I have been adding to the soil at the base of the bush;)
Diane

Well Hello Diane! You were one of the funniest people I have ever run into here and I haven't run across you since this thread. Did you ever have a "No Ivy" picnic? Were the picnic attendees totally impressed with the reason for gathering?

Better than the coffee grounds, check out the prescription in the 3/23/06 post on this thread to concoct capital quince conditions...

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/455375/#new

Who new that all you needed was an interstate?

Edited to say: Who new I couldn't spell gnu?

This message was edited Mar 24, 2006 12:35 AM

Hey Equil,
We had such a celebration! But, alas...it was premature, I fear:( The dad-blamed thing has decided it isn't going to die. I'm starting early, this year, with my dabbing of the leaves with brush-b-gone! DH told me he'd dug up all but a small part of a root. Yeah. Anyway, I can hear the neighbors dialing up the police dept. when they hear a crazy woman dabbing and shouting, "DIE, IVY, DIE!!!"

VV--we aren't far from the interstate but I'm not uprooting "Quincy" and dragging his dangling roots the two miles to get him there;) As you can see from the last paragraph, it won't take much more to get the neighbors to call the nearest asylum!! Wonder if they have computer access there???

Snow the other day and VERY cool temps for this time of year--it'll be a while before we see if Quincy is going to bloom, this spring. What a cliffhanger!
me

I feel your pain. I still have little bits of the ivy coming up and it never ceases to amaze me. The big question du jour Diane is did you ever go out unto the curbs of the world and gather leaves for yourself?

I'm chuckling to myself on this one, Equil:) Your adventure with leaf collecting is one for the books...how could I top it?! (Even thinking of your hopping from leaf bag to leaf bag in your robe has me trying to stifle a laugh).

Nope, I just left things uncovered (buck naked, even--the plants, not me). I know it was horrible of me (and there were reasons I didn't get to it if truth be told) so I will be digging up weeds, seedlings of plants I already have and who knows what else, this spring. I'll do better, this year???
me

Tell me it ain't so! Your plants went nekkid with all those great leaves at the curb that people set out? Oh horrors!

I've been collecting leaves from curbs for a while. My upper driveway has bags of them by the basketball hoop. You never know when you're going to need them. I've learned to make a mental note of the location of homes where people who own mulching lawn mowers live. Their leaves are always the best. The other little tid bit of advice I have is to wait until people bag leaves the second time before you scarf them up from their curb. I've noticed that the first time they bag leaves they also bag things like cigarette packs, candy wrappers, styrofoam coffee cups, gum wrappers, and other assorted garbage tossed out car windows that accumulated over the course of the year. It's the second bagging of leaves from the curb that you want. Getting dressed to collect your leaves is optional.

Getting dressed is optional!!! HAHAHAHA!!

We don't have a separate yard waste pickup, here. They had it when we lived in PA for 3 yrs., and my mom's area in NE does it. Not done in our part of CO, though. SO-O, folks rake and put into our reg. (huge--city-owned) trash barrels. Now, you don't WANNA go dumpster-diving for mulch in this part of the world, trust me;) I can see a variation of that being done with robe and slippers but it AIN'T pretty;) HAHAHA~

Oh nooooooo! CO doesn't have curbside leaf collection! My bad. Poor deprived Diane. Seriously, I assumed most everyone lived near some area that had curbside leaf collection. If you ever come to Illinois, I will share my leaf stash with you. Dumpster diving around here is pretty decent. Unfortunately, my husband asked me nicely to stop dumpster diving. Spoil sport!

Looks like you'll have to settle for yard sales, like me. But I've never seen anyone put their leaves up for sale....

This may sound silly but many people do bag their leaves. Would you feel comfortable asking the neighbors who do rake and bag to give you a call and your could walk over and drag the bags back? If I didn't have curbside leaf collection I know I'd go around to those I saw raking and bagging and ask. People are pretty darn accommodating and I'd think they'd snicker but tell you to help yourself to whatever they had.

If I ever see anyone raking and bagging, I'll ask. Most folk (in this part of the world--only small, young trees) use the mulching attachment and then have their yards aerated to keep from smothering lawn at the end of the season...they don't bag.

I took a perusal of the gardens today and really wish I'd put them properly to sleep, last fall. So much old growth to cut away; I'm going to fill up a dumpster with this stuff! Sure wish I had more energy!