At this time of the year in my area you could throw a stone in any direction and hit a winged euonymus, which sounds like it should be some kind of a dragon or at least an exotic dragonfly.\u00a0 In fact it is only a shrub, known botanically as Euonymus alatus.\u00a0 Landscapers, catalog vendors and just about everyone else know it as \u201cburning bush.\u201d<\/p>\n
The burning bush takes fiery flight in fall, setting landscapes \u2013from shopping malls to back alleys \u2013 ablaze with brilliant red color.\u00a0 This almost makes up for the fact that the rest of the year it passes among us unnoticed, hiding its light under a bushel of dowdy green foliage.<\/p>\n
Burning bush was introduced from Asia about 1860, a time when many exciting new ornamentals arrived from the Far East.\u00a0 It is a member of the Celastraceae or bittersweet family, which is also home to the red and orange-fruited bittersweet vines that are popular for harvest decorations.\u00a0 Left to their own devices, the burning bush species shrubs grow a whopping fifteen to twenty feet tall, with a similar spread.\u00a0 The habit is mounded and spreading, though most of us see burning bush clipped to a fare-thee-well.\u00a0 The opposed leaves are oval or elliptical, somewhat serrate or toothed and generally narrower at the stem end.<\/p>\n
The wings that give winged euonymus its Latin and common names are on the stems; flat, corky appendages that jut out on either side of shoots. The shrubs flower in spring, bearing tiny, four-petaled blooms in clusters of three.\u00a0 The yellow-green flowers go almost unnoticed.<\/p>\n
Humble Euonymus alatus stands silently among us until the moment when severe color deprivation begins to creep in.\u00a0 Our fall stalwarts, the mums and asters, have given up the ghost and even the ornamental gourds have faded.\u00a0 The deer and groundhogs have polished off the bright purple and green decorative cabbages and kales.\u00a0 Autumn winds have blown the colorful leaves off the maples and other trees.\u00a0 We are left with little but waning daylight and the knowledge that the winter solstice is still a month off.\u00a0 Just as Seasonal Affective Disorder starts seeping into our souls, the burning bushes light up, with the reddest possible leaves and our foundation plantings, traffic islands and municipal landscape beds catch fire.\u00a0 Even people who rarely notice autumn foliage notice the bursts of color.\u00a0 Spirits lift and people decide that they might be able to make it through until the Christmas wreathes go up.<\/p>\n
There are many cultvars of burning bush, developed either to enhance the brilliant red leaf color or create a more compact size, since not everyone loves to clip shrubs all the time.\u00a0 The most popular variety and the one most likely to appear in your local nursery or garden center is \u201cCompactus,\u201d which can grow up to ten feet tall, with slender branches and a dense habit that makes it the best choice for hedging and screening.\u00a0 \u201cOdom,\u201d sold under the trademarked name Little Moses, is exceptionally compact at about three feet tall.\u00a0 The foliage is brilliant red and stays on the plants up to fourteen days longer than the species.\u00a0 \u201cOdom\u201d also produces significantly fewer fruits, which is a plus because the fruits are beloved of an array of birds that eat them and excrete the seeds, distributing the plants far and wide.\u00a0 Euonymus has invaded naturalized areas in many places, especially in the Middle Atlantic region and southern New England, and is considered invasive in those areas.<\/p>\n
I worry about invasive plants like burning bush, because I have seen woodland areas taken over by species like Halls\u2019 honeysuckle, multiflora rose and Chinese wisteria, all of which were originally brought to this country as ornamental plants.\u00a0 Each one has its virtues, attracting pollinators, providing food and shelter for birds and small animals and sometimes controlling erosion.\u00a0 However, they outcompete native plants and create dangerous monocultures.\u00a0 Diversity is healthier in the long run.<\/p>\n
If you like the looks of burning bush, but live in an area where invasiveness is a problem, try blueberry.\u00a0 In the northern half of the country, highbush blueberry \u2013 Vaccinium corymbosum \u2013 is the species to look for.\u00a0 Gardeners living in the southern United States should choose rabbiteye blueberry \u2013 Vaccinium ashei \u2013 varieties, which succeed in warmer climates.\u00a0 Blueberries bear lovely pink flowers in spring and brilliant red foliage in autumn.\u00a0 If you can outwit the birds, the berries are delicious in late June or early July.\u00a0 You can\u2019t say that about burning bush fruits.<\/p>\n
And if you decide that you would rather not use burning bush because of its invasive tendencies, don\u2019t be discouraged.\u00a0 Closing the door on burning bush opens the door to an array of bright-leafed plants, from fothergilla to viburnum.\u00a0 Your bushes may not burn this year, but your horizons have expanded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At this time of the year in my area you could throw a stone in any direction and hit a winged euonymus, which sounds like it should be some kind of a dragon or at least an exotic dragonfly.\u00a0 In fact it is only a shrub, known botanically as Euonymus alatus.\u00a0 Landscapers, catalog vendors and … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[679,678,681,682,154,680],"class_list":["post-941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","tag-burning-bush","tag-euonymus-alatus","tag-fall-foliage-plants","tag-foundation-shrubs","tag-invasive-plants","tag-winged-euonymus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":942,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions\/942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}