Burning bush shrubs may appear pretty in the fall, when their leaves turn a blazing bright red. But they also are pretty invasive, and this year they earned a spot on Pennsylvania’s list of noxious weeds.
For the past few years, the list has seen the addition of several plants popular with landscapers, including Japanese barberry and several varieties of callery pear tree. In January, state agriculture officials added burning bush and three types of privet hedge (Japanese, Chinese and European) to the list.
“Burning bush’s ability to thrive in dense shade contributes to it taking over woodland under-story areas,” former Penn State University Master Gardener Coordinator Lois Miklas wrote in a Penn State Extension post addressing the new additions.
And while privet’s ability to quickly regenerate has made it popular as a “living fence” in American yards, “this resiliency is also what causes it to colonize nature areas,” Miklas said.
So why isn’t it colonizing the backyards where it is used as landscaping?
That’s because invasive plant seeds often are distributed by birds, who eat them and then deposit them elsewhere in droppings, or by the wind, blowing seeds to new areas.
Agriculture officials have given nurseries and garden centers until January 2025 to phase out the sale of their existing stocks of burning bush and privet. And while several landscaping staples have made their way onto the list, it hasn’t necessarily dealt a blow to the bottom line of business owners.
“As far as a direct replacement for a burning bush, there’s nothing that really turns red in the fall like that, but there are a lot of other plants and shrubs people can use,” said Lynda Ridge, garden center manager at Country Farms Garden Center and Landscape Service in Hempfield.
Penn State Extension officials recommend dwarf fothergilla, which is native to the southeastern U.S. but thrives and grows fragrant, bottle-brush-type flowers in spring, with colorful foliage in the fall; southern arrowwood, which throws white flowers in spring with yellow and red foliage in fall; and eastern wahoo, which is sometimes called burning bush because of its scarlet fruit and strong fall coloring, but is a North American native plant.
State agriculture officials are asking homeowners to consider removing burning bush or privet if they have it planted.
“For privet, people can use lilacs and forsythia, plants that don’t seed everywhere,” Ridge said. “And with barberry, there are new varieties now which are sterile, and we’ve been replacing the old varieties with those.”
Miklas recommended inkberry holly or northern bayberry, both of which grow in a hedge style similar to privet.
For a full listing of the state’s noxious weeds, see Agriculture.pa.gov, and type “noxious weeds” in the search box.
Patrick Varine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Patrick by email at pvarine@triblive.com or via Twitter .