Shrub · Celastraceae
Burning Bush
Euonymus alatus
Set it in full sun and the autumn leaves ignite into a deep scarlet you can pick out from across the yard.
Full sun
Every 7–14 days
USDA 4–8
15–20 ft · 4.6–6.1 m
Overview
Burning bush is a tough, easy shrub planted for one feature above the rest: its autumn leaves. Through summer the foliage is a flat, reliable green, but as the daylight shrinks the leaves shift to a fierce scarlet-red that lit up countless yards and parking lots for decades. Running down each stem are corky, winged ridges of bark, the detail that earns it names like winged euonymus.
It demands next to nothing. Once rooted it brushes off drought, settles into clay, loam, or sand without fuss, and rides out winters as cold as -29°F (-34°C). The same hardiness is the snag. Birds strip the orange-red fruit and drop the seed through woods and fencerows, where it builds into dense thickets that crowd out native plants.
For that reason, burning bush is now invasive across much of the eastern and central United States and outright banned in several states. To get that same fiery fall display without the spread, reach for natives like chokeberry, serviceberry, or ninebark instead.
Care
The short version: set it in full sun for the brightest scarlet leaves, give it well-drained soil of nearly any type, water it until established and then mostly let it be, and prune in late winter to hold its shape.
Light
Hand burning bush full sun for the deepest scarlet leaves. It puts up with partial shade and still grows well, but plants in shade keep their leaves green into autumn and skip the red display that makes the shrub worth growing in the first place.
Water
Water a fresh plant steadily through its first year, then ease back. Once it has settled in it is genuinely drought tolerant and asks for water only every 7 to 14 days during a dry stretch. Keep it away from constantly wet soil, which opens the door to twig blight.
Soil
This shrub accepts nearly any well-drained soil, whether clay, loam, or sand, over a broad pH of 5.5 to 8.0. Drainage is the single condition it won't bend on, since waterlogged ground is the root of most of its problems.
Temperature
Burning bush stays cold-hardy across roughly -29°F to 95°F (-34°C to 35°C), spanning USDA zones 4 through 8. Brutal winters leave it unbothered, and that toughness is part of how it escapes so readily into the wild.
Humidity
Plain outdoor humidity suits it, so there's no level to fuss over. Air movement counts for more than moisture overhead, because stagnant, crowded growth is what hands fungal twig blight its opening.
Feeding
Feeding is rarely something this shrub needs. One balanced slow-release fertilizer in spring will do, and only when growth looks weak. An excess of nitrogen pushes leafy green at the cost of the fall color you planted it for.
Pruning
Cut it back in late winter or early spring before new growth breaks, whether you're shaping the form or reducing it hard, which it shrugs off. Trimming away the spent fruit also cuts down on the seedlings that make this plant a nuisance.
Repotting
Burning bush is a landscape shrub and rarely sits in a pot, so repotting hardly comes up. Should you grow a young one in a container, pot it up when roots wind around the base, water pours straight through, or the top growth stalls.
Size & spacing
Left to itself it builds into a large shrub of 15 to 20 feet (4.5 to 6 m) tall and 8 to 12 feet (2.4 to 3.7 m) wide. Allow it that much space, or count on steady pruning to keep it in bounds.
When to plant
Burning bush is a hardy deciduous shrub, which keeps the calendar simple. Set it out in spring or fall while the weather stays mild, look for the small green flowers around May, and wait on the real spectacle when the leaves blaze red in autumn beside the orange-red fruit.
Northern hemisphere
Southern hemisphere
Typical months for a temperate climate: start earlier in warm zones, later where spring frosts linger.
- Plant: Spring or fall
- Harvest: Inconspicuous yellow-green flowers in spring (about May), followed by red-purple fall foliage and orange-red fruit
Hardiness
USDA hardiness zones: 4–8
Temperature: down to -34°C
Troubleshooting
Burning bush seldom causes a grower much trouble, and the signs it does throw are easy to read. Faded fall color traces back to its spot, while spotting, webbing, or dieback trace back to a pest or a waterlogged root zone. Match what you see below and act before it spreads.
Sand-flecked leaves wrapped in wispy silken threads
Leaves that look pale and sandblasted, flecked with tiny yellow dots and threaded with thin webbing along the undersides, are the work of spider mites, which multiply fast through hot, dry, dusty weather. Hold a leaf over a sheet of white paper and tap it, and you'll spot the specks moving. Knock them off with a strong jet of water, then treat with horticultural oil or insecticidal soap and repeat to catch the hatchlings.
Fix:
- Spray foliage forcefully with water to dislodge mites
- Apply horticultural oil or insecticidal soap
- Repeat treatments to break the mite life cycle
Twigs and small branches dying back
Dead twigs scattered through the canopy and sunken, darkened cankers on the wood are the signature of twig blight, a fungus that thrives where the ground stays wet. It strikes hardest in poor drainage or soil that never gets a chance to dry. Cut each branch back to clean wood well past the lesion, wipe your tools between cuts so the spores don't ride along, and correct the drainage that fed it.
Fix:
- Prune out and dispose of affected twigs well below the damage
- Improve drainage and avoid overwatering
- Clean pruning tools between cuts
Pale, shell-like crusts along stems, yellow-tinged leaves
Hard white and brown bumps crusting along the bark are euonymus scale, a sap-feeding insect that drains the plant, yellows the leaves, and saps its strength season after season. Snip out the stems that are caked worst and coat the rest with horticultural oil to smother what remains. Sprays only land when the young crawlers are on the move through late spring and summer, so time the treatment to them.
Fix:
- Prune out heavily infested stems
- Apply horticultural oil to smother scale
- Treat crawlers when active in late spring to summer
Washed-out fall leaves, no crimson flush
The whole point of this shrub is the autumn blaze, so leaves that fade to a flat green-brown instead of scarlet almost always mean too little sun. In shade the foliage flushes out healthy and full but never reddens, and a heavy nitrogen feed drives the same leafy green at the expense of pigment. Give it a full-sun spot and cut back on the fertilizer, and the deep red returns.
Fix:
- Relocate or transplant to a full-sun site
- Reduce or stop nitrogen fertilizing
- Thin overhanging vegetation to increase light
Toxicity
Count this entire shrub as poisonous. The leaves, bark, and fruit carry alkaloids and cardiac glycosides that set off vomiting and diarrhea and, in heavier amounts, throw off the heartbeat. It is unsafe for dogs, cats, horses, livestock, and people alike, so keep the dropped berries and prunings well out of reach.
Toxic to
Cats · Dogs · Horses · Rabbits · Livestock · Birds · People
Cats Moderate
A cat that gnaws the leaves or fruit will typically start drooling and vomiting, with diarrhea and stomach pain coming next. Take in a real mouthful and the cardiac glycosides begin to upset the heartbeat, which turns a rough night into an emergency.
Dogs Moderate
Within hours of chewing any part of the shrub, dogs usually throw up and pass loose, painful stools. A large helping brings on weakness and an uneven heart rhythm, so a call to the vet is the safe choice.
Horses Moderate
Because horses cannot vomit, the toxins stay in and surface as colic, diarrhea, and a weak, dragging walk. Grazing any real quantity can throw off the heartbeat and calls for a vet without delay.
Rabbits Toxic
Those same alkaloids and glycosides overwhelm a rabbit's small frame quickly, triggering gut stasis, diarrhea, and a rapid crash. No part of this plant should sit anywhere a rabbit can get to it.
Livestock Toxic
Cattle, sheep, and goats that browse the foliage or dropped fruit suffer severe digestive distress and, in bigger amounts, dangerous heart-rhythm problems. Fence grazing animals away from any hedge or windbreak that holds it.
Birds Caution
Birds gulp the showy fruit and pass the seed intact, which is precisely how this shrub seeds itself into wild land. The fleshy arils sit fine with them, yet the seeds and foliage still pose a risk to caged or ground-feeding species.
People Caution
No part of this shrub is food. Swallowing the fruit and seeds can bring on vomiting and diarrhea, and a heavy dose carries the same heart-rhythm danger, so keep curious children clear of the bright berries.
Keep fallen fruit and prunings away from pets and small children; ingestion of several leaves or seeds commonly causes gastrointestinal upset.
Helpline numbers
United States
ASPCA Animal Poison Control: (888) 426-4435 (fee applies)
Poison Control: (800) 222-1222
Canada
Poison Centres: 1-844-764-7669
Varieties
A handful of named selections show up at garden centers, mostly scaled-down versions of the same plant. Keep in mind that not one of them fixes the invasive problem.
Compactus
A dwarf winged form that reaches roughly 10 feet and fills in tighter than the species, yet it still loads up with seed and spreads every bit as invasively.
Rudy Haag
A tightly built, slow-creeping selection that holds at about 3 to 5 feet tall and carries far less fruit than most others.
How to propagate
Burning bush multiplies with ease, which is part of why it runs so freely in the wild. You can root cuttings deliberately or, all too often, find seedlings springing up on their own.
Stem cuttingsModerate
Softwood cuttings in early summer or semi-hardwood cuttings in mid to late summer · Several weeks to root, then grown on for a season or more
Pull softwood cuttings in early summer or semi-hardwood ones somewhat later, press the cut ends into rooting hormone, and hold them in humid air until roots form. Rooting takes several weeks, after which they want a full season or more of growing on before they can go in the ground.
SeedEasy
Seed sown after cleaning and cold stratification · Germinates readily; note that prolific self-seeding is the main reason this plant is invasive
Once cleaned and cold-stratified, the seed germinates with hardly any effort, and that ease is the whole trouble. Birds feed on the fruit and fling the seed across the landscape, which is how the shrub leaps the garden boundary and turns invasive. Raising it from seed on purpose is discouraged.
Myths
The miniature, tightly-branched burning bush selections cannot escape, so they are safe to set in the ground.
Compact picks such as Compactus still set heaps of bird-carried seed, so they slip into the wild just as easily as the full-size shrub. Burning bush is banned or regulated in several states no matter the cultivar, dwarf forms among them.