burning bush stories and pictures

Rosemary, that is so wonderful you are removing the invasives and planting natives.
It took me quite awhile to get rid of the couple I had in my yard, they kept popping up in the middle of other plants.

I was trying to see what in my garden colors up nicely in the fall that would substitute for the burning bush and I have 2 lovely Fothergilla that has beautiful fall color and spectacular fragrant white bottle brush flowers in the spring. I'm cheating here because it is really a southeast native.
Blueberries if you have very acid soil have wonderful red fall color as does the native azalea cultivar "Mary Dell". The azalea has the most beautiful spring flowers and the fragrance can be smelled throughout the garden. I have both the high bush and low bush blueberry shrubs to encourage berrying. Some of the bushes are taller and open and the low bush forms a tidy small more rounded shrub.
If you had the space and wanted to do a more formal hedge you could plant the smaller ones in front, maybe with the evergreen ink berry, Ilex glabra, and the highbush blueberry behind.

The USDA site lists Euonymus alatus as "banned" in MA and "invasive but not banned" in CT. It is interesting that you can find it planted in abundance along many Interstate exits in both states! My neighbor has three planted along our common property line, but so far they have been well-behaved, and colorful in autumn.

Don, nothing personal but EVERYBODY says "well MINE is well behaved" as if one cultivated bush would act like an invasive species at one cultivated site. That's like "some of my best friends are" fill in the blank. It's not that you have one bush. It's that your one bush has zillions of babies every year and birds eat them and then fly away to somewhere else and poop out the seeds. Your bush may have great-grandchildren it's never met! Did you see that photo of CT understory? I used it in my article, let me go look....

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/3082/

The picture next to reason #5 is a picture of a Connecticut woods where the understory is completely filled with E. alata. Boy, that article is badly formatted, I mean the font changes size and the bullets don't line up etc. Oh well.

Go Rosemary!

Missed that one first time around, Carrie - nicely done.

Note: you have the common names backwards on the two (excellent) viburnum substitutes you offered in the article.

Viburnum dentatum is Arrowwood Viburnum.

Viburnum nudum is Swamp Haw Viburnum.

I'll also note this in a reply to the article.

Actually, it's occurred to me that a thread is only a start, but we could ask DG to make a topic for native plant gardening. I know I have a lot to learn about it, and at the same time, some of my choices might make someone else shudder.

Here's a good place to check in:

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/wildplants/all/

There are many good folks that post there. Most of them could offer plenty of information you might be interested in.

claypa is a northeasterner that I've met before. Good guy, and into native plants up to his chin.

Wonderful article Carrie. I missed this the 1st time around also.
I just ran outside this morning to take a photo of one of the Fothergillas.
The rest of the yard is in a distressed state from the October storm but this Fothergilla is burning red.
My neighbor has a whole line of burning bushes right at the fenceline. They are still green.

I'll ditto the blueberries that sempervirens mentioned, and raise you an even simpler but ever-so-rewarding shrub with brilliant red fall color annually (for me):

Rhus aromatica - the Fragrant Sumac.

i have a few other project going on here - maybe in a couple years i will replace the burning bushes around my fire pit with fothergilla - red licorice is supposed to get large so that may be the one - and then there are vibs to consider - although i would want to keep them trimmed to six or eight feet and use as a screen or garden room

Good article, Carrie. I like having your list of alternative plants to consider.

I will check out the thread that VV suggests. Thanks.

Learning about viburnum has been on my do do list

That's a big can o' worms to open...

Boinggg!

Interesting article, Carrie. Maybe we should form flash mobs that show up in the middle of the night and dig up the burning bushes planted in the Interstate exits--oh no, wait, that's probably a federal crime!

You could start with the two growing next to, around and under my house. I had them cut down to nubs a few years ago but they're ba-a-a-a-ack! And one is big enough to have the evil berries which I need to go remove before somebody disperses them.

I looked around my yard today. Sure we dug up tons and tons of burning bush ths year. There, growing in about a dozen places, in shade, between tree trunks, under a fence-- there they were, with their ruddy distinctive branches and leaves, and even others with their winged branches that hadn't turned the tell-tale red yet.

Wow. You heard the lady, folks. I'm involved in a Facebook discussion with a friend from HS who lives in OR now and reposted my article. Some of her friends were trying to explain that BB isn't invasive out west. I of course had to butt in and say maybe it's not invasive YET but I'm trying to give you folks the chance to avoid going through what we're going through here.

I found another substitute for burning bush with good fall color, red rose hips that look like berries, red coloration of newer canes and sweet smelling June flowers, that is native and wildlife friendly ( rose hips are not eaten until everything else is gone)- Rosa virginiana.
The photo is of a small cutting I slipped into my neighbors mostly invasive shrub hedge ( I had permission) a few years ago.
Look at that red and clean yellow color!

The Rosa virginiana in my yard has a more orange color but you can see the red rose hips better.
The small red shrub is a low bush blueberry and the orange shrub further back is another fothergilla.