Negative regex for Perl string pattern match

Your regex does not work because [] defines a character class, but what you want is a lookahead:

(?=) - Positive look ahead assertion foo(?=bar) matches foo when followed by bar
(?!) - Negative look ahead assertion foo(?!bar) matches foo when not followed by bar
(?<=) - Positive look behind assertion (?<=foo)bar matches bar when preceded by foo
(?<!) - Negative look behind assertion (?<!foo)bar matches bar when NOT preceded by foo
(?>) - Once-only subpatterns (?>\d+)bar Performance enhancing when bar not present
(?(x)) - Conditional subpatterns
(?(3)foo|fu)bar - Matches foo if 3rd subpattern has matched, fu if not
(?#) - Comment (?# Pattern does x y or z)

So try: (?!bush)