Lack of flowers on flowering quince

I have a question for any growers of flowering quince - Chaenomeles. I have a large bush that normally blooms profusely this time of the year (near Chinese New Year). But this year, due to the mild fall and winter we have been having in my part of California, the leaves of my flowering quince did not drop off at all. In the photo below, it is still very green. I looked for blossoms, and only found a few in about 5 or 6 branches that had no leaves. So, my question is, do the leaves have to undergo senescence and fall off before the flower buds form on the quince? Last week, I handstripped a bunch of branches, but don't know if that will do any good (as in the case of trying to fool mother nature?)

I think your quince needs to have some modicum of a "winter" (inasmuch as that is possible for your part of California) wherein it experiences some period of cold. This, coupled with a succeeding period of warming up, should trigger flowering in this species.

Since you have illustrated that your plant is still green, it hasn't had its period of dormancy from which it would emerge with spring-like flowering behavior.

If you have lots of resources and not much else to do, you could create the imitation of a cold spell. This is a trick used by the folks that put on the Masters Golf Tournament sometimes, when weather doesn't cooperate and the azaleas need to have their blooming period timed with the week of the televised event.

Use ice. Chilling the soil and ambient air around your quince might just do the trick, if getting it to flower on command is important.

I'm surprised you haven't had enough cold in Sacramento--we've sure had plenty here! I've already lost several things to frost damage on nights when it got down into the mid 20's...I'd be happy to send some of that your way if you'd like :-)

Viburnum - thanks for your input. I have tried the chilling with ice on smaller plants like peonies, but never had this problem with the quince,

Ecrane - you are right, we did get several days of below freezing temperature in Dec and a few in January, but that did not seem to affect the leaves of the quince this year. My brugmansia is all frost damaged, along with the tibouchina, and gingers - so we have had our share of freezing temp. ( Ecrane, I'll pass on your kind offer of sending in the cold. LoL)

I have had this shrub for about 15 years now, and this is the first that it has hung onto it's leaves so long. Most of the leaf drop in prior years takes place in November. The only thing I can think of is that the fall temps were so mild that the leaves were somehow able to adapt once it gets past a certain point???

I really miss having the blossoms for Chinese New Year, which was yesterday. So Happy Chinese New Year to all of you.

I don't know if this will help or not, but I have two flowering quince, one on the east side of the house, one on the west side of the house. These were both here when I moved here one year ago. The east side one blooms like crazy. It is stunning. The west side one had no blooms last year, but has four blooms this year. The one on the east side gets watered when it rains, merely because it is on a run-off from the roof and supposingly we are in a drought. The west side one got water all summer with a soaker hose; it happened to be in a large bed I was keeping watered.

So, maybe it is the east sun. I know I plan to take a bit of this with me when I move and am already planning on planting it on the east side of my house. Come to think about it. . . Just this morning on an errand I notice a quince in bloom while I was driving and it too was on the east side of that house. ????

Guess I gave up on the flowering quince a little too early. It did not bloom as early as it normally does, and the leaves sort of hid the potential buds. But, about a month later, a lot more bloom were evident.

Greta - thanks for your input. This quince is so big that there is no way that I will be able to move it, so it is going to have to stay put. LoL.

Here's a close up of the blossoms.

I like these old-fashioned quinces so much better than the short stubby things they sell in the nurseries these days. I purchased one from the nurseries quite a few years ago, thinking that it will be tall like the ones that I remember from my childhood. What a disappointment. I dug it out. Then, I discovered a clump at a friend's yard, and dug up an offshoot from hers, which is what you see in these photos. I have a smaller one next to it that I dug up from a vacant lot.