PLANT OF THE WEEK

COLOUR can be a bit thin on the ground at this time of year. What you really need is a bit of red or pink to brighten your life. I have the very thing – a Japanese quince.

If you’ve got a wall or fence that needs brightening up, the plant that rejoices under the botanical name of Chaenomeles will be just the job.

It’s not so much a climber as a scrambler, so it will need a leg up in the form of trellis or stout horizontal wires spaced at 1ft intervals.

But given that, and any half–decent soil that has had a bucketful of well– rotted garden compost or manure added, it will romp away and delight you each year in late winter with a rash of apple–blossom flowers that wreathe the bare branches before leaves are brave enough to open. Buy a plant now and you will be able to see exactly the colour of its flowers. They may be white as in nivalis, pink as in Moerloosei, or bright red as in the variety Nicoline, but all of them are worth growing.

The Japanese quince, or ‘Japonica’, is a darned good all–rounder, and one that is almost guaranteed to brighten up your life as winter edges its way towards a welcome spring.