American bittersweet
Celastrus scandens
The twining native whose orange-and-scarlet berry clusters are the classic fall wreath, clothing fences and arbors in glossy leaves all summer and gold in October.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Red
- Sunlight
- Full sun for fruit
- Watering
- Low to moderate
- Soil
- Any drained soil; lean ground keeps it civil
- Feeding
- Gentle all-organic
- USDA zones
- 3a–8b
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- Plant spacing
- 4 ft 11 in
- In-row spacing
- 3 ft 11 in
- Between rows
- 6 ft 7 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody, and deeper than the stem suggests
- Working depth
- 24 in–4 ft
- Can reach
- 6.5 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 6.5–13 ft across, about 1–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 20 in of soil
A vine puts far more below ground than its one thin stem implies, and that is where the alarming vigour comes from. Give the root run depth and drainage at planting; it will forgive almost anything done to it above ground afterwards.
Root suckers come up some way from the plant and the top strangles what it climbs, so it is grown on its own strong support and never up a tree worth keeping.
The habit is American bittersweet’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Cats and dogs
- Recorded toxic
Recorded as toxic to cats and dogs by ASPCA.
Also filed by the ASPCA as False Bittersweet and Climbing Bittersweet, same species.
- When
- Berried stems for wreaths in October, as the orange husks split to show the scarlet arils.
- What to look for
- Leaves yellowed and dropping, husks just cracking open at the stem tips.
- How to harvest
- Cut generous lengths from female vines and twist them into wreaths while supple; they dry in place and hold all winter. This doubles as the annual pruning, which the vine needs anyway.
- How often
- One October cutting; a harder cut-back in late winter whenever it outgrows its support.
- Storing the crop
- Dried berried wreaths keep indoors all season (the berries are not for eating). Compost them in spring rather than tossing them over the fence — that is how bittersweet ends up where it is not wanted.
- Scale insects Scale insects on old stems
- Powdery mildew Powdery mildew in a stagnant corner
- Check the label twice: oriental bittersweet sold in error is the worst pest this plant has
- A twining habit that will strangle a young tree used as a support; give it a fence, an arbor or a dead snag instead
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Hoverfly SyrphidaeHunts Scale insects
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) CoccinellidaeHunts Scale insects
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
It is male or female, so plant one of each (or a self-fruitful cultivar) or there will be no berries. Buy carefully: nurseries still sometimes sell the invasive oriental bittersweet as this plant. American carries its fruit in clusters at the stem tips, the invader strings them along the stem.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com