Meech's Prolific Quince Trees

Meech's Prolific Quince Trees

Meech's Prolific is the official name, but it's spelt Meeches in plenty of places so take your pick. This is one of the three best grafted fruiting quinces for the British climate, the others being Vranja and Serbian Gold. 
Meech's Prolific is self-fertile, flowers in May and carries good crops of large, highly scented golden fruit, which are ready for picking around early October when the skin turns a glorious golden yellow. They can be real whoppers - up to half a kilo - in ideal conditions - usually in the South of England and Wales.

Browse our range of quince trees or our full variety of fruit trees.

Features:

• Cooking
• Self fertile
• Perfumed fruit
• Lovely pale pink blossom
• Cropping early October, when the fruit turns yellow
• Heaviest fruiting variety in UK
• Up to 500g per quince in ideal conditions
• RHS Plants for Pollinators

Quinces are extremely hardy, but they do need a good summer to crop well. In Britain, this means that they are reliable as far North as Yorkshire, as long as they have a sheltered sunny South facing spot. All quinces have decorative flowers - these are slightly pink - and make ideal subjects for a sunny wall, where they are easy to train on wires. For those who try to bring more aromas into the garden, the fruit on the tree is deliciously fragrant. We have one at home which fills the garden with scent in October when its quinces are ripe and almost everything else has shut up shop for the winter.

The three classic uses for quinces are stewed slowly with meats, mixed with other fruit to make fillings for pies (with apple or pear and blackcurrant is a good combo), or used to make Quince cheese, jam or jelly/marmalade. Quince liquor is popular in several European countries - look out for Polish Pigwa (pronounced Pigva) Vodka if you want to give it a try, it's pretty easy to find in the UK. 

How to plant Cydonia oblonga Meech's Prolific trees:

Bare root trees are available for planting in the dormant season, between November and March. Container grown plants can be bought all year round - although planting in winter is preferable.

Quince trees need a sunny, sheltered site away from frost pockets with soil that retains moisture during summer but is freely draining through winter.

Dig a hole no deeper than the root ball, but around three times the diameter. Fork over the bottom of the hole and add in some well rotted compost or manure, as well as dressing of Rootgrow mcycorrhizal fungi.

Place the tree in the hole and backfill with soil. Firm in to place. Stake in the direction of the prevailing wind. Keep well watered in dry weather, mulch and top dress with a general-purpose fertiliser in spring.

Container grown plants should be fed fortnightly from early spring with a liquid feed. Quinces are pruned in winter.

Spacing Meech's Prolific quince trees:

Freestanding bushes: 12-18 feet (4-6 metres) between trees and rows.
Freestanding half-standards: 18-30 feet (6-10 metres) between trees and rows.
In general, allow 1 more metre between rows than there is between each tree in the row.

Watch our video on how to plant a fruit tree for full instructions on planting a bush or half-standard sized tree.

If you are growing a maiden sized fruit tree into a freestanding tree, a bamboo cane is enough support.
If you are growing a cordon or espalier, you will need to install training wires to support them.
Remember to water establishing fruit trees during dry weather for at least a year after planting.

Fruit Tree Planting Accessories:

For bush and half standard fruit trees, our tree planting pack includes a wooden stake & rubber tie to support the tree and a biodegradable mulch mat with pegs, which protects the soil at the base of your tree from drying out and stops weeds from sprouting.

Did You Know?

Originally from Dagestani and Iranian mountain slopes (very cold in winter with long hot summers), quinces were classified as Pyrus cydonia, in the pear family, but now have their own genus, Cydonia oblonga. Kydonia, today Chania, is an ancient town in Crete.

In 1888, Reverend William Witler Meech of New Jersey, USA, published one of the most important books on Quince cultivation, sensibly titled "Quince Culture: An illustrated hand-book for the propagation and cultivation of the quince, with descriptions of its varieties, insect enemies, diseases and their remedies."
According to Reverend Meech, this cultivar is from Connecticut, and at first he sensibly labelled it the Pear-Shaped Orange Quince, but according to page 21 of his book, he "only consented to change it to Meech's Prolific when my horticultural friends showed that it needed a different name to avoid being confounded with some of the other pear-shaped varieties."