Moving houses - what do I do with my hops?

I have a three year old magnum and cascade rhizome that I would like to salvage and move to my new house( which is only 10 miles away)

should i dig them and put them in planters indoors? replant them outside? keep them in the fridge until spring?

I want to take the entire crowns with me which should be pretty large.

We live in southern Pennsylvania and I think we will be moving within the next month so it will be after the first frost of the season.

I have read that you can dig them up and pack them in damp peat moss, keep them cool and damp but not frozen and then plant them in the spring. Have not tried it but it sounds legit to me.

If you've done the commitment thing on the new house and you're just in that limbo state before closing, perhaps you could ask the sellers if you could transplant now...

Cheers!

I'd get 'em in the ground at your new place whenever you can. They'll begin to establish in the new environment and will continue to form roots until the soil freezes. You can prolong the rooting with a good layer of a dark colored compost which will help absorb some heat and keep the underlying soil a little warmer into the Winter. Never tried the pot thing as they need a little down-time over the Winter and even a cool part of your cellar would be too warm ~ plus the whole moisture situation, how much is too much/little. In my book, the Earth does a pretty good job with that situation. Get 'em in the ground and stand back next Spring!

Agree with Hoppy. You live in a northern-ish climate and the plants are shutting down for the winter. Prune them off, dig them up and move them in the same day if possible. If you can't move them in the same day, then pot them and replant when you can. These plants are not that fragile.

Don't forget to water them in and mulch with chopped leaves.

I moved, pruned them down, transplanted them and nothing. they didn't make it!
Looks like I have to go get more rhizomes and start from scratch again.

I feel sorry for the people who buy the old house and have to fight back new growth from the old vines.

We live in a rental now. Ha

unclephilly said:

I moved, pruned them down, transplanted them and nothing. they didn't make it!
Looks like I have to go get more rhizomes and start from scratch again.

Click to expand...

Honestly, they might be hibernating, if you have a pretty established root ball they should make it, might not show new growth till the spring, I wouldn't give up, mulch and fertilize with a low nitrogen slow release fertilizer, something like 0-2-0 or 0-2-2, you don't want nitrogen to kick them out of hibernation.

Just did the same thing today (in Northern VA), dug up 8 cascades and put them in holes this afternoon. I'm waiting until I can get some compost in a couple of hours to fill in the holes.

Question, though: I managed to trim about 20 8-inch shoots/rhizomes off of the plants, mostly three that were incredibly robust. What are thoughts on putting those in the ground right now vs. potting now and doing it in the spring? I could keep in my detached shop, which stays a little warmer than winter temperature but not much.

Those structures (the rhizomes) are the plants' survival mechanisms so that if someone where to drop a bomb on the crown and try to eliminate it, the rhizomes would survive and keep the plant alive. The first hops I ever saw were growing along a roadside about this time of the year back in the mid 80's. I followed one of the vines back to the soil and saw some buds that had formed on a rhizome out away from the crown. I ripped a chunk off and buried it in a cornfield across the road from where I was renting. The next Spring I had moved into a house and remembered to go back to the corn field and transplant the rhizome at the new location. It grew like the bad weed that it is. I'd say to just stick them in the ground and don't worry about it.

Yeah, went ahead and transplanted now. We're still getting some solid sun and afternoon warmth so I've put dark black compost on top of each hill to soak some of that in, will get everything mulched/insulated as that starts to fade.

What's pretty amazing is how many shoots I was able to get off of really just 3-4 healthy root systems -- I went from one plant in eight hills to now having 3-4 plants (mostly 6" shoots, some more robust crowns) in 20 full hills (took the commercial approach and crowded them in, not ideal but time at night is short and digging is a constraint). Looking forward to about 20 months from now!