The Historic District

This grows in the side yard, long stems (6-7 ft, needs trimming!) with little branching. Darkish green shiny oval leaves about 1.5 inches long.

It looks like it could be a thornless form of flowering quince, Chaenomeles japonica.


James

I agree with James~ Japanese Quince I've always known it as,we actually have a very old large one in the same colour at this house.
They happily cope with pruning,had to prune mine hard a couple of years ago after a very hard winter with prolonged deep snow the rabbits stripped the bark of several branches which then died,but after pruning it came back beautifully.

Although I've always known it as "flowering," "Japanese" is a better common name because it distinguishes it from the larger, but unrelated (yet curiously similar in the color and fragrance of its fruit) orchard quince, also of Asian origin, Cydonia oblonga - that also flowers. Cydonia was a staple in North American home gardens going back to colonial times because it was the source for pectin in fruit preserves, until pectin became widely commercially available in the 1920s. Its fruit is bitter, hard, and pleasantly aromatic. The trees themselves are notoriously ugly but, with age, their gnarly forms achieve a bonsai-like beauty. (It's how I now describe myself )

I was told that Japanese quince (I'm a convert!), whose fruit is also wonderfully fragrant, (I drive around with a basket of them on the floor of the car for a few weeks in the fall) couldn't be made into the ethereal, champagne-pink jelly that my grandmother used to make, but I tried it anyway. It can, and it's great.

James

Thanks for the info! I'll have to watch for fruit (if the critters don't beat me to it!)

Love that information James,so interesting ,thank you!
Oh and the jelly sounds nice too!