This is a great time of year for at least one type of Euonymus: the burning bush. Don’t confuse it with the smoke tree, or smoke bush. They’re different plants from entirely different plant families. Smoke tree is a Cotinus and related instead to the sumac. This is one instance where if there’s smoke there isn’t necessarily fire.

The claim to fame of the burning bush, or Euonymus alatus, is how it transforms every autumn from a dark green shrub to one with extremely vibrant red foliage. Of course, being deciduous, you’ll have to rake up all those lovely leaves at some point, but until you do you’ll have a real standout shrub in your landscape.

A burning bush can grow up to 30 feet tall, which puts me in mind of a burning tree more than a bush. If you’re concerned about the potential of having more shrub than you bargained for, there are smaller varieties on the market. Euonymus alatus “Compactus”will only reach nine to eleven feet in height—still not tiny!—but it will provide the same showy display as its larger cousin.

Another frequently grown Euonymus is the Golden Euonymus, Euonymus Aureo-marginata, an evergreen shrub that will reach six feet in height. It has green leaves with irregular yellow margins, about as different from a burning bush as you can get.

The name Euonymus sounds more like a rare African beast than a common landscape plant, doesn’t it?  Or maybe a stringed instrument, something you’d play to accompany a theremin, the source of that very creepy-sounding “wee wee” music heard on the soundtrack of every corny sci-fi flick made in the 1950s. Or maybe it’s something you’d find on a microscope slide in biology class. In any case, I recently discovered the wood of some Euonymus shrubs was traditionally used for making spindles for weaving and so it’s sometimes called a spindle in English. Even so, this is the first I’ve heard of this and would be curious to know if anyone else has heard this name used.

Euonymus is a genus of only about 130 deciduous and evergreen shrubs and small trees in the Celastraceae plant family, and those used in landscaping are very hardy and easy to care for, which adds to both their popularity and the chance they’ll become noxious weeds in some locales.

Take, for instance, Euonymus fortunei, or winter creeper, a woody, evergreen vine that’s taken over many a forested area in the eastern part of the United States. It forms dense mats that choke out native understory vegetation.  Even the burning bush, desirable here in Western Washington, has its own page on the Vermont Invasives website.

If you’re curious about what the people in Vermont recommend for getting rid of this particular shrub, here’s a method that might work on other unwanted shrubs in your yard. Cut it down in the fall or winter and then wrap the stump with several layers of burlap or black plastic and tie it down tight. Check it from time to time and remove any new growth.

This doesn’t sound like an instant fix to a bad shrub problem, but I say it’s always good to have another arrow in your quiver, just in case.