Updated on September 7, 2026
Yes. Deer eat euonymus — wintercreeper first, Japanese euonymus next, burning bush when they are already on the property. Rutgers rates wintercreeper (Euonymus fortunei), Japanese euonymus (E. japonicus), and winged euonymus / burning bush (E. alatus) all Occasionally Severely Damaged (C). Cornell’s woody list and Iowa State’s compiled table (Rutgers, Cornell, Michigan State; last reviewed July 2022) put wintercreeper one rung worse: frequently severely damaged, with yew, American arborvitae, and evergreen azalea. A nursery tag that calls Emerald Gaiety “deer resistant” is selling a variegated leaf, not a rating.
| Verdict | Yes. Evergreen euonymus is winter browse. Burning bush is the same genus, a milder meal, not deer-proof. |
|---|---|
| University rating | Rutgers C on wintercreeper, Japanese euonymus, and winged euonymus. Cornell / Iowa State: wintercreeper frequently damaged; winged euonymus occasionally. NC State: wintercreeper and Japanese euonymus frequently damaged by deer. |
| What they eat | Evergreen leaves and twig tips from snow line to chest height; spring flush on deciduous burning bush; bark on young stems in a hard winter |
| Peak | November–April on wintercreeper and Japanese euonymus; spring flush and winter twigs on burning bush |
| What works | Welded-wire cages; an 8-foot fence; winter net on a groundcover; replace the plant |
| What does not | “Emerald Gaiety is resistant”; Compactus instead of a full-size burning bush; a 4-foot picket; glycoside toxicity |
This is a garden-shrub page, not a wild-diet page. Woods browse is on what deer eat. For the rest of the planting list, use the deer-proof garden guide.
Which euonymus you actually planted
The name on the receipt is usually one of three Asian ornamentals. Mixing them up is how people decide “euonymus is deer-proof” after a burning bush survives a winter that stripped the wintercreeper at its feet.
- Wintercreeper (Euonymus fortunei). Evergreen vine, shrub, or groundcover. USDA Forest Service FEIS: introduced from China as a groundcover in 1907. Maryland Extension (updated April 28, 2026): aerial rootlets like ivy; climbing stems 40 to 70 feet. Cultivars in the same deer window: ‘Coloratus’, ‘Emerald Gaiety’, ‘Emerald ’n’ Gold’. NC State: frequently damaged by deer, and invasive in North Carolina.
- Japanese euonymus (E. japonicus). Broadleaf evergreen hedge. NC State: 10 to 15 feet in cultivation, salt-tolerant, “frequently damaged by deer.” ‘Aureomarginatus’ (golden euonymus), ‘Green Spire’, and the dwarf ‘Microphyllus’ sit entirely in the browse zone if you keep them as a 3-foot edger.
- Burning bush / winged euonymus (E. alatus). Deciduous. Corky wings on older stems, red fall color, ‘Compactus’ at every big-box. Rutgers C. Iowa State files it under shrubs occasionally severely damaged, not with wintercreeper on the frequently-damaged row. Full page: do deer eat burning bush. Maryland Department of Agriculture prohibits sale of burning bush; wintercreeper is the plant still in the bed.
Two natives are not a free pass. UGA Circular 985 lists strawberry bush / hearts-a-bustin’ (E. americanus) among plants deer occasionally or frequently browse. Iowa State names eastern wahoo (E. atropurpureus) as a burning-bush swap for fall color — nativity, not a Rutgers A. Maryland’s ‘Manhattan’ (E. kiautschovicus) is an upright evergreen; I did not find a separate Rutgers letter, so treat it as the hedge it is.
What deer eat, and when
A deer has no upper incisors, so it grabs a spray of opposite, leathery leaves and tears. After a raid you get a browse line of bare stems from a foot off the ground to four or five feet, ragged petioles, and — on a climbing vine — a green hat above chin height. That is the same architecture as English ivy and a yew hedge: the plant is not resistant up top. It is out of reach.
Wintercreeper is the winter meal. FEIS, summarizing a Greenwich, Connecticut landscape-nursery study over the winters of 1982 to 1984, reports wintercreeper as the most heavily browsed of more than 50 ornamentals: an average of 97.3 percent of shoots browsed, against 10 percent on winged burning bush in the same yards. Cornell still files wintercreeper with American arborvitae and Japanese yew on the frequently-severely-damaged woody list. Iowa State does the same. Rutgers’ C on both species is the New Jersey compromise; the evergreen is the one that still has a salad in January.
Japanese euonymus keeps those waxy leaves all winter at hedge height. Burning bush drops them, so a mature plant can look “untouched” in March; the same deer still clip the spring flush and, in snow, the twig tips. A UConn parking-lot trial (Shrestha and Lubell, HortTechnology 25:171–180, 2015) planted ‘Compactus’ as a control: deer damage scored 1.8 on a 1–5 scale — “more heavily than was expected” — and the shrubs recovered. That is a haircut, not resistance. Peak on the evergreens is November–April, when hostas and hydrangeas are sticks. Raids follow when deer feed. If the shade bed already lost hostas in June and evergreen azaleas in January, the euonymus is on the same dusk circuit.
Deer vs rabbit vs scale vs winter burn
- Deer. Ragged, torn ends. Foliage gone from a foot up to chest height. Minnesota Extension: rough or shredded, not a clean clip.
- Rabbit. A neat 45-degree cut within 18 inches of the ground or the snow line. Iowa State lists burning bush among shrubs rabbits hit; FEIS notes rabbit damage on ‘Coloratus’ in an Arkansas nursery. Hardware cloth at the soil line stops rabbits; a deer steps over it. Tactics: how to keep rabbits out of the garden.
- Euonymus scale (Unaspis euonymi). White male covers and brown female oysters on stems and the underside of leaves. NC State and Clemson HGIC treat scale as the chronic pest of this genus. The outline of the leaf is still there in the morning. Do not spray egg solids on an insect.
- Winter burn. Brown leaf edges still attached after wind and sun, common on golden Japanese euonymus. The leaf is there. A deer took it if the petiole is a stub.
Where it is worst
Suburban lots from New Jersey through Maryland and Pennsylvania — Rutgers geography, because the white-tailed deer herd is dense and every other house planted Emerald Gaiety under a maple. Greenwich is the measured version of that suburb. Upper Midwest winters (Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota) put wintercreeper on Iowa State’s frequently-damaged woody row when snow covers everything else. FEIS’s southern Forest Inventory found the most escaped wintercreeper in Kentucky and Tennessee forests — the groundcover climbing a tree at the woodlot edge. Collar-county Michigan yards on the Michigan hunt page are where an unfenced Coloratus patch looks worst in March. Pest-level yards are deer as pests. UGA left invasive euonymus off Circular 985 on purpose.
What actually works
Physical exclusion, then a replacement. Species choice inside this genus only changes how often you lose leaves, not whether you need a barrier in a high-density suburb.
- Cage the shrub. Welded-wire or hardware-cloth cylinder, taller than foliage plus snow, staked so a nose cannot tip it. Individual cages belong on Japanese euonymus and on Emerald Gaiety the first two winters.
- Fence the bed or yard at 8 feet. Minnesota Extension: woven-wire needs to be at least 8 feet tall for a larger area. A 4-foot picket is a step. Deer clear that without thinking. Layout: how to keep deer out of garden beds.
- Winter net on a groundcover from first hard frost through March, pinned so a muzzle cannot lift a corner. A Coloratus patch is a carpet, not a shrub — net the bed or pull it.
- Repellents as a supplement. Egg- or capsaicin-based sprays can buy time if you start before the hedge is a habit, reapply after rain and snowmelt, and rotate formulas. See which organic repellents hold up. They will not save a Cornell frequently-damaged evergreen on a travel route.
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What does not work
Glycosides. NC State rates wintercreeper and Japanese euonymus low-severity poisons. That does not stop a suburban whitetail any more than taxine stops them on yew. Compactus does not change Rutgers’ C. Surrounding wintercreeper with lavender fails twice: lavender wants sun, wintercreeper takes shade. Soap and dryer sheets are the untested bucket. Maryland’s line is do not plant wintercreeper; replace it.
Plant these instead
- Ferns — Iowa State: nearly all garden ferns are rarely damaged. Christmas, ostrich, cinnamon, and Japanese painted fern fill the shade hole without a winter buffet or a 60-foot vine.
- Deer-resistant hedges — if the Japanese euonymus was a screen, boxwood, inkberry, Chinese juniper, and Japanese pieris are the honest swap. Iowa State files boxwood and juniper on the rarely- or seldom-damaged woody lists.
- Deer-resistant shrubs — potentilla, spirea, bayberry, and (where it is hardy) sweetbells. The UConn trial that browsed Compactus left sweetbells and highbush blueberry unbrowsed; blueberry failed the parking-lot site for other reasons.
Flower menus deer usually skip: flowers deer do not eat and deer-resistant perennials. Cost and layout if you keep the plant: how to keep deer from eating plants. Wintercreeper travels with arborvitae, yew, and English ivy on Cornell’s winter list. Hostas go first in the same shade bed in summer; azaleas take the January shift. Do not add another unprotected Emerald Gaiety and call it a groundcover.
Common questions
Will euonymus grow back after deer eat it?
Usually. Wintercreeper and Japanese euonymus leaf from remaining buds. Repeated stripping on a new groundcover weakens it; a vine browsed for years is a stick ladder with a green hat. Compactus took a haircut in the UConn trial and still filled in. Cage the next two winters or replace it.
Is any euonymus deer-resistant?
Not the three plants people buy. Rutgers C on all three. Cornell and Iowa State put wintercreeper in the frequently-damaged column. A vine above five feet, or a leafless burning bush in March, is reach and calendar — not chemistry. Native strawberry bush is still on UGA’s browse list.
Do deer eat burning bush more or less than wintercreeper?
Less. Greenwich: 10 percent of burning-bush shoots against 97.3 percent on wintercreeper. Burning bush is deciduous; wintercreeper is still green in February. Both still need protection in a high-density suburb. Burning bush is also the plant Maryland already banned for sale.
Will a 4-foot fence save euonymus?
No, not as a yard fence. Eight feet is the enclosure number. A cage or winter net works because the deer cannot get its head in. A 4-foot hardware-cloth ring is for rabbits on burning-bush stems.
Sources
- Rutgers Cooperative Extension — Landscape Plants Rated by Deer Resistance (wintercreeper, Japanese euonymus, winged euonymus: Occasionally Severely Damaged, C)
- Cornell Cooperative Extension — Deer Resistant Plants (wintercreeper: woody plants frequently severely damaged)
- Iowa State Extension — Susceptibility of Plants to Deer Damage (wintercreeper frequently damaged; winged euonymus occasionally; compiled from Rutgers, Cornell, Michigan State)
- UGA Extension Circular 985 — Deer-Tolerant Ornamental Plants (strawberry bush, Euonymus americanus: occasionally or frequently browsed; invasives excluded from the planting list)
- NC State Extension Gardener Toolbox — Euonymus fortunei (frequently damaged by deer; invasive; low-severity poison)
- NC State Extension Gardener Toolbox — Euonymus japonicus (frequently damaged by deer; scale; 10–15 ft hedge)
- USDA Forest Service FEIS — Euonymus fortunei (1907 introduction; Greenwich 1982–84 browse: 97.3% of wintercreeper shoots vs 10% on E. alatus)
- University of Maryland Extension — Winter Creeper (updated April 28, 2026; 40–70 ft climb; burning bush prohibited for sale in Maryland)
- Shrestha and Lubell, HortTechnology 25:171–180 (2015) — ‘Compactus’ deer-damage score 1.8/5, UConn campus
- University of Minnesota Extension — White-tailed deer damage (8-foot fence; shredded vs clipped damage)
- Clemson HGIC — Euonymus Diseases & Insect Pests (euonymus scale)
Part of the Deer-Proof Garden Guide. Wild diet lives on what deer eat.
