more winter flowers

The mild weather in the run up to Christmas has brought all sorts of flowers on.  The ornamental quince under the kitchen window has been coming into bloom in the last few days, earlier than it normally appears.  This year's display is not going to be its best, since two thirds of it had to be cut to the ground last year to give access to a blocked drain, and it doesn't look as though the regrowth is fat and strong enough to flower this time round.  Plus, the mild winter has left it with the faint delusion that it might be an evergreen, and it is hanging on to a scattering of leaves which do nothing for its appearance.

I don't know its name, since it was already there when we bought the house.  It's a waste of wall space, given that Chaenomeles are perfectly hardy and capable of growing as free standing bushes in this part of the world, on the other hand it is so monumentally spiny that any but a determined burglar would probably pass by our kitchen window in search of easier pickings.  And the soil right by the house is dreadful, and there is often a car parked outside the window so it isn't a spot anybody would linger to look at a more elaborate planting scheme.  And the bees love the flowers, not that they were out today.  The plant seems rather quiet and lost without them.

Maybe I should try and identify the variety, but the flowers are red and there are a lot of old red flowered sorts of Japanese quince when you look in the books.  The flowers are carried very close to the stems, starting off as tight, round buds like miniature pink Brussel sprouts.  The developing buds become red globes, before opening into cupped, rounded, five-petalled, single flowers with a central boss of pale yellow anthers surrounding a little tuft of stigma.  It's a good shade of red, with a touch of brown in it.  I wouldn't mind having a lipstick that colour, if I wore lipstick.

A few fruit are still hanging on to the lower branches.  They are large for an ornamental quince, and look like slightly shrivelled yellow skinned apples.  You can cook with them, though I never have.  As far as I can gather they don't taste of anything in particular, so there didn't seem much point, but maybe I will one year in a spirit of enquiry.

The white flowered Chaenomeles speciosa 'Nivalis' by the oil tank is starting to come out as well. It's always one of the earlier ones to flower, much sooner than the pink 'Moerloosei', and is a strongly upright grower so it's just as well nobody tried planting it under a window, whereas its height is appreciated in front of the tank.  The sight of the camellias and flowering quince in that bed bursting into life makes me realise that I'd better get on and weed it.