Pruning a problem Quince
I have a Quince in my back garden, which was there when I moved in 6 years ago. It's planted on the fence line between mine and my neighbours garden. I have been pruning it back to keep my side tidy but the plant has grown in and out of the chicken wire fencing and is a bit of a tangle. I also have Ground Elder mixed in around the roots as well and I'm getting the Quince coming up in the lawn from the roots.
To tidy the whole thing up and help remove the Ground Elder can I prune the quince back right down to the base of the stems so I have the room to get the Elder out and start to have a bit more control of the Quince so I can train it along the fence line. Or will it just start sending up suckers all over the place.
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Here is a link that might help.
http://www.doityourself.com/stry/how-to-prune-a-flowering-quince#.UeuxaL9wbIU
You are supposed to treat a quince rather like an apple tree and do only gentle pruning after the fourth year, according to the RHS.
http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=298
A relative whose garden I've been looking after has an overgrown quince in the garden that I've been trying to sort out. You can't just chop it to the base, but you can prune it quite hard and completely cut out the branches you don't want. If you can expose the base, you can still dig out that blasted ground elder, then use a contact weedkiller to deal with the bits whose roots are entangled with the roots of the quince and which regrow. At the same time, you could dig out any quince suckers you don't want. But anything that sends out suckers is going to continue to do so.