garden adventurer
The flashy fruit pods of strawberry bush salute the arrival of autumn.
The Sneaky Strawberry Bush WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY L.A. JACKSON
122 OCTOBER 2021
IF YOU LIKE SNEAKY PLANTS, let strawberry bush (Euonymus americanus) surprise you. How? For starters, the name seems to imply a larger, bushier version of the field-grown, spring fruits, but it is not. Also, for most of the growing season, it is hardly noticed, and then, with the arrival of autumn, BOOM! It can’t be ignored. The shifty tale of the strawberry bush (also known as hearts-a-busting) begins in the local brush, meaning the backwoods of the eastern U.S., where it is a native understory subshrub that likes to inhabit moist, open forests and shady river banks. Being a gangly, skinny plant that only reaches about 5 to 6 feet high and wide, it is easy to miss. Even its spring flower show of tiny, greenish-yellow blooms attracts little attention.
