[Hilary]

I exchange flower photos with a friend of mine who lives in the UK.
Recently she sent me this.
Any ideas of what it is?

[John J]

Hilary, have you tried Chaenomeles?

[Alice]

I would agree with John. One of the Chaenomeles (Japanese quince) species/cultivars.

[Umbrian]

Chaenomeles performs well in Italy growing steadily once established and tolerating summer heat and drought.
There are some interesting cultivars readily available too making it a good choice for an early flowering shrub.The flowers last for a long time opening in succession along the spiky and wide spreading branches and also last well when cut for the house. During the summer the leaves remain glossy and healthy unlike some early flowering subjects. Altogether to be recommended

[Hilary]

John, Alice and Umbrian,
Many thanks for the identification.
The ones I see here in Greece grow in an upright fashion and the flowers are a lighter pink

[oron peri]

The ones I see here in Greece grow in an upright fashion and the flowers are a lighter pink

Hilary, infact, i have tried the red and white forms few times down here,
they have never last long,  i think they do not coop with hot dry climat.
The pink form is a rubust plant, slow grower but can reach 3m in height, it is a stunner!

[David Dickinson]

One of my local nurseries in Rome has had the same plants (the red and the white varieties) in pots for many years and they survive the summer well. Suggests that it is not the heat but lack of water which might kill them?

[Fleur Pavlidis]

In my gargen in Attica Japanese quince survives the drought but to no point since the plants look awful. Conversely planted in the middle of the road near me and watered really well there is a whole line of them which looks gorgeous every spring. They are red. Don't you find that the white flowers go horribly brown and ugly?

[Hilary]

I found a couple of photos I took of Japonica in Sparta a few years ago.
The climate in Sparta is cooler and damper, or so it seems to me, than what we experience in Corinth

[Alice]

They do really well in our garden in England, so I would be surprised if  they flourished in the drier parts of the Med. without a good deal of watering.
By the way, I have, in the past, made an interesting-tasting jelly from the fruit. Supposedly better after a few frosts.

[David Dickinson]

Yes Fleur, I agree with you - the white ones here in Rome are never a brilliant white and soon turn brown. There was at one time a stand of red ones in a small park nearby but they have all been ripped out. I don't know why. Did they not survive the summer or were they the victim of a change of mind on the part of the Rome parks department? A real pity because the red ones are truly beautiful at the end of winter.

[Umbrian]

As regular readers of the Forum will know, I never water after the first year when establishing a new subject and so perhaps I just struck lucky with the siting of my Chaneomels that has grown steadily and healthily for many years and always rewards me with a magnificent display of flowers in the spring. You do see a lot of them around my area and I cannot believe they are all watered but then, Umbria is not really typically Mediterranean in climate although we do get long, hot summers during which, as I said, it continues to look good.

[anita]

It can't just be the heat and drought that kills the chaenomeles as they thrive in Adelaide, often surviving in abandoned gardens, and we are at the extreme end of Mediterranean climate. I've found that they do need to get a bit of support throught the first summer to allow them to get their roots down. On reflection it occurs to me that the 'survivors' are almost always the paler red cultivars, the clear red, the white and the delicate apple blossom shaded pink and white are usually seen gardens that receive some supplementary watering through summer.

[Umbrian]

Glad to read your comments Alice. I am a firm believer in establishing a good root system and then seeing what happens .....