Friday, November 27, 2009

Queen Victoria Rose, Growing Quince and Making Marmalade

Queen Victoria Rose -Hybrid Perpetual from France 1840 bred by Jean Laffy, zone 6b to 9b

 

I was looking in my files for a good picture of my Quince tree (Cydonia Oblonga) not to be confused with Flowering Quince (chaenomoles spp).  Not finding one, and without logic, I chose this picture of Queen Victoria Rose. This rose sits across the pathway from the Quince.  It is a beauty.  A hybrid perpetual from 1840, it re-blooms and is fragrant.  I have over 50 roses in my garden. I never spray and rarely have a problem. Our area is pretty low in humidity so black spot is not a problem.  In the spring I work into their soil a bit of banana peels, alfalfa pellets and compost.  My biggest challenge is that the deer love the roses that are in the open front yard.  My solution is that I am removing the most "tasty" varieties.

Now about the Quince - I have a Quince tree.  And unlike the Quince trees that I grew up with, this tree is a bit of a wussy.  But, I love quince! So, every year, I experiment with this tree.  The fruit are attacked by the same insects or diseases that affect apples.  Plus, we get at least one good hail that regularly knocks the fruit off.  This year, I covered one of the fruit with a tiny paper sack, tying it carefully with a wire tie.  The fruit was pristine! So next year, I plan to tie little paper sacks on all the fruit.   A funny looking tree you think?  Yes, but the most fruit it has ever had is 12, and it is tucked into a fairly hidden southwest corner by the house.

 This year a friend gave me a sack full of quince.  I was able to make a quince lemon marmalade. I got the recipe from Cooking Light.  Delicious!  It takes, quince, lemon and sugar and water.  Since I had about 8 lbs of quince. I made enough to "put up".  I had already peeled most of the fruit, when I thought that this would be a good subject for a post - so here are 3  quince.

Quince

canned quince



 

11 comments:

  1. Gloria, this is such good news. The rose is a knockout, but I am talking about the quince. I became addictated to quince marmalade when I lived in England. Sometimes I would even buy a fresh quince just to keep in my kitchen, they have such an incredible smell. But, I did not think they would be hardy in Canada, at least not the cold area where my garden is.

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  2. I love quince! Always surprised that so few people even know what it is. Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

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  3. 50 roses? No black spot? No spraying? Gloria, I take off my hat! I have 15, very basic. They all have black spots and I hate spraying! This year, a deer started to come eat them on regulat basis. I covered some bushes with nets. it helped, but the flowers looked smashed. No more roses for me. As for quinces, I never tried them! Your marmalade looks so delicious! I have a sweet tooth.

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  4. Hi Gloria,

    Wow! What a gorgeous rose! I am so impressed that you have 50 roses. The most I had at one time was 40, but then we had to move. I just loved using alfalfa for my roses - the results were amazing!

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  5. what a beautiful rose your queen victoria is....i miss all my roses when i lived in sonoma county and we also had a quince tree, but i never did make a jam....looks yummy. It reminds me when i made jam out of my pineapple guavas which was alot of work but an amazing jam.

    great post,

    noel

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  6. Hi, Gloria!
    I'm surprised to hear your quince is a 'woosy' :-) I chose to plant a red flowering quince because I heard they were so tough... Anyhoo, your roses are absolutely gorgeous. I remove the tasty ones, as well, since the deer and elk love to munch 'em. Perhaps they are gobbling the fruit from my quince. I never see anything to harvest!

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  7. What a gorgeous rose!! None of mine have ever looked that good. I don't know a lot about quince other than seeing them bloom so nicely in early spring. They sure look good!

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  8. Your Queen Victoria Rose looks awesome! What a treat it must be not to have to battle blackspot on roses. We have very high humidity in Alabama and it is a constant battle. The roses are well worth the trouble. I am always on the look out for low maintenance roses. Any suggestions you might have would be helpful....

    Thanks for this blog. I have enjoyed reading it.

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  9. Now I find another thing to admire in your garden... a stunning rose and fifty others of various kinds ... no spray! I would love to learn your secrets. I only have a few roses because I always believed you had to spray ... which I could never do. You give me hope. Lovely photos! Carol

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  10. Hi Gloria - thanks for stopping by my blog today. We DO have lots in common! Not just the sourdough, but also I made quince jam, quince jelly, and poached quince this year from all the extras I got at my community garden. Great to 'meet' you and I look forward to reading more of your blog.

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  11. Congrats on the QV rose - it is a beauty! We're limited to growing extremely hardy [zone 2 or 3] shrub roses, and we've had quite a bit of success. But we envy yours. Way to go!

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