I dunno… you did ask this on Easter…

There is a good possibility that the rabbits will keep coming back until they kill the burning bush, once they get a taste they will keep coming back for more. The link attached will help give you tips that will safely stop both these critters without harm here

It’s probably rabbits who are eating the burning bush. Deer will eat it too, but they prefer many other types of plants much more than burning bushes. Depending on how much damage was done (and from the sounds of it, it was pretty bad) there’s a decent chance that the lower parts of the bush are toast. I would recommend giving it a couple weeks to see if it is going to attempt to grow anything (I highly doubt it will though). After that, you can attempt to prune it back, but chances are that nothing will grow back in the long run. There is a chance you might salvage the plant, but the odds are really against you.

If by “burning bush” you mean “bittersweet”, that stuff is nearly impossible to kill. If it’s an established plant, then it has a root system (a very aggressive root system, mind you) that will persist and flourish after the worst winters and deliberate attempts at eradication. You can even mow it, cut it down to ground level, and it’ll come back.

But perhaps I’m mistaken in the conflation of “bittersweet” and “burning bush”. (Maybe I learned something today!) According to this site you can still cut it to ground level safely, though.

Burning bush is a member of the euonymus family and is not bittersweet.

I have trimmed mine back several times because I find it a nuisance. After I threw the branches into the wood margins, the berries rooted and I now have many mini-euonymuses
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Since I also have serious depredation from both deer and rabbits, I am surprised that they have left my burning bush babies intact.

Perhaps it is because I have more succulent and delicious items available.

I am wrong. I do commercial landscaping, and from my experience never had a burning bush come back, but that’s just because it takes a couple years for it to regrow, and commercial properties want to have plants replaced very quickly if they don’t regrow almost instantly. I looked at a couple of gardening sites, and they all say that if you prune it back in the early spring, it will regrow in 2–3 years.

@amujinx: MIne are running amok and seem to be fool-proof in spite of a huge herd of deer, rabbits, voles, mice, raccoons, possums, skunks, and mysterious beasts of the night.

Rural, zone 4.

@gailcalled Well, what I said about deer is true, they prefer to eat almost anything else over burning bush. One of my co-workers who knows much more about plants than me recommended them to me to replace the plants the deer have eaten this past winter at my parent’s house. Other animals I don’t know as much about though, we have a bad deer overpopulation problem here, but not so much with any other animals.

@amujinx: How much land do you have. I live in a very rural area where three acres is considered a small plot. I have 20+ acres that abut on other large plots so there is a lot of ond growth field, deciduous woods, evergreen forests, streams, ponds and hay and corn fields.

The wildlife periodically let me know that I am the interloper, with my peonies, roses, tomatoes and short-lived experiment with tulips.

Mydeer have eaten the juniper bushes and the cedar trees, which is essentially akin to chewing on steel wool. Nothing is sacred.

@gailcalled Across all the properties that the company I work for has, I would estimate about 100 acres, maybe a bit more. All the land is in the suburbs though, so there is nowhere near the amount of wildlife around as there is in rural areas. The only animals that cause any problems for us is deer and canadian geese (who will eat the annuals we plant every year except for the ones they don’t like the taste of, which they rip out of the ground).

@amuinx: The Canada geese who nest here (many, many, many because of all the ponds) also make a terrible mess with their copious pooping.

At this time of year, the deer practically have breakfast with me. They are fearless, it seems, and almost impossible to scare away. And I grow tomatoes only in big pots on my deck. It is a constant battle of wits; the animals always win but each year I start off with a naive optimism.

Welcome to fluther, by the way. I love having another gardening expert here.

Give the offending critters something else to munch on to distract them. Find where they’re coming from and plant other tasties along the way. Chances are that they’ll at least spread their grazing out more between them.

That or trapping. I do likes me some rabbit soup.

Thank you, all! I think we will try pruning first. I do hope it comes back because we do like it. Send some good gardening vibes this way!

On their way.