Quince Purchase, worth the chance?

I'm only a newbie to all this but I'd say go for it!  I got an Azalea stupidly cheap a few weeks ago because it looked half dead, got it home and watered it and its now literally covered in fresh leaves, flowering heavily and looks great!

coh wrote:I was just searching for old threads on flowering quince and came across this...think I wound up purchasing the plant being discussed!... ...

I was just doing the same  
The reason is I have bought a Chaenomeles yesterday and I need info about it since I have no experience with this species. It is a nursery plant into a 8-9lt pot but I don't know the exact variety, however it has bright coral red flowers and one or two of them have one of their petals a cream/beige colour.
I need to repot it into a training pot and I wonder if I can do it right away (spring time coming in my country - 9a zone). Well, these are my questions :
- Does it matter that the plant is in full bloom? No leaves emerging yet.
- How much root work shall I do safely?
- From my readings I would say that it can take hard pruning, am I correct?

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

I have pulled shoots from a municiple lawm late last spring, last year: in the past there used to be hedging of quince. The roots were not removed completely, so every year they sprout, are trimmed with every lawm mower cycle etc.

Only got a few cm of "root", about 2cm thick, no side roots. Chucked them in the ground. Left them between some plants. They are now popping flowerbuds all over.

In short: I think they can handle A LOT of abuse

Thank you very much for your response, Leatherback.
However the timing query remains...
Let's hope someone experienced will chime in