When the persimmon we look out on from the dining room and living room began to show bare branches during the drought, I wasn't worried. We've been through the droughts of 40 years or so, that tree and me. Each dry season my persimmon sensibly died back in late summer, not waiting for its usual autumn glory, and then sprang back with fresh green leaves next spring. It's never been watered, and never seemed to mind, and never been fed either.

I didn't even think my persimmon might be getting a bit elderly. I've known persimmon trees that are well over 100 years old, massive beauties that are still giving fruit where old farm houses were burnt down in the 1939 fires, or the 1890s or even 1870s. It didn't occur to me that my persimmon hadn't grown any taller for 30 years, unlike those monsters. It has stayed round and shapely, a neat grafted tree for today's smaller gardens. Trees grafted onto dwarfing stock do not live as long as the deep-rooted monsters of older, bigger gardens. But still, it hasn't been all that long since I planted that tree ... has it? Time had passed, somewhere, and so has my tree.

I planted the persimmon purely for its beauty, for the bright green leaves that yell "spring is here", and the way they silver in the breeze. I grew it for the loveliness of its glowing orange fruit that hangs on the branches long after the leaves have turned bright orange-red and fallen in the a neat heap below the tree, where the colour brightens early winter days till the leaves finally turn brown long after they have fallen. The parrots, rosellas and bower birds then eat the fruit, which is another wonder, as the various species turn somersaults and scream at each other.

The persimmons are for the birds, not me. We had a persimmon tree in a corner of the backyard when I was a kid, and only Dad ate the fruit, using a spoon to scoop out the flesh after his breakfast toast. The persimmons had to be lined up on the windowsill to soften before they were edible.

Persimmon varieties back then only came in "bitter" or "very bitter" and had to be left to sweeten after picking. Most of the crop fermented gently under the tree, luring fruit fly and the less discriminating dogs. I don't even like modern varieties of persimmon much, though they now have all the sweet, crisp and flowery flavours I usually adore - I think it's the childhood memory of persimmon mush.

Our persimmon tree grew back after the drought and bushfires - almost. The top branches remained bare. They grew just a little barer still this year. Some of the bark on the lower trunk is beginning to peel away, and, even more tellingly, there are fungi growing in a line that seems to follow one of the roots. Realistically, and with great sadness, it's now on the list of "fruit trees to cut down this winter'" - or when we get around to it.

If you want a tree for beauty and productivity as well as neatness and reliability, plant a persimmon - one of the new, non-bitter kinds. It won't grow much for the first year, but then it will suddenly double in size. Five years or so later you will have a stunningly leafed friend to gaze at every day, even in winter when the bare branches have their own sculptural beauty. But I'm not going to plant a persimmon again, nor will I put another tree in its place, and not just because anything else I plant there may become infected by whatever rot has invaded the dead roots of the persimmon. The spot will stay bare, partly from sentiment, and partly because as my husband keeps reminding me, we do need a bit more space if there is ever to be a decent parking space nearer the house.

But I do need another tree to love, one that combines extreme beauty with productivity. I finally found exactly the right one today, in Lambley Nursery's online catalogue. It's a Chinese quince, Pseudocydonia sinensis, which is not the familiar quince of European quince jelly and quince paste, Cydonia oblong.

Chinese quince fruit does resemble European quinces, but it's more rounded, a smooth oval shape, and has a stronger perfume even while in the tree. It's also fuzz free, and bitter, but can be cooked and sweetened like a quince into jams and jellies. It is also said to have useful medicinal properties, though it is unlikely I will ever eat enough of it, or often enough, for them to have any effect. In other words I'm not really planting another fruit tree, as I have vowed not to do again several times. This is an ornamental.

It should be very ornamental indeed. Chinese quince grow 3-4 metres tall in our soil and climate, and have a neat rounded shape, much like persimmons, with no shaping or pruning needed. The flowers are magnificent, thick as crab apple blossom but each one larger, cup shaped and a very deep blush pink. The summer leaves are shiny, and flagrantly orange-red in autumn. In winter the tree displays yet another kind of beauty, with is bark peeling off into a patchwork of grey, green, and almost pale blue and brown. The fruit is attractive too, and I hope the birds enjoy it.

I'm not sure yet where I'm going to plant our Chinese quince. It will be somewhere near the front gate, where it will greet us as we leave, and when we come home. I will even water it, and feed it, despite the tree's reputation for hardiness. My dear persimmon might just have lived longer if I had tended it. The friendship it offered for the last 40 years deserved it.