Hop Plants vs Rhizomes

I would like to start growing my own hops I have a very large garden and want to add hops to the tool box.

I know it's too late to plant and get hops this year and I have found that most of the sites I reviewed last night are sold out of rhizomes.

I did find a company that sells plants and I was wondering if other than double the price there is any advantage or disadvantage to rhizomes/plants.

Thanks for any advice.

other than stress on the plant it is a crapshoot. some will say dont get plants this late some will say go for it. personally id just spend the time prepping the site for next spring. lots of time to compost the area xtra well. build a trellis that will handle all they can throw at it etc. and come spring get the rhizomes

Not sure where you are thinking about getting your plants from but I bought some from Windsor Gardener recently and they are doing much better than rhizomes I have planted in the past. I have only had about 40% success with rhizomes over the years but so far the plants are doing great in comparison.
The first year is all about root growth anyway so if you are thinking of a couple, you haven't lost much even if they don't make it but my guess is as long as you keep them well watered you'll be ok.
Good luck.

I planted a month ago,have about an inch of budding growth, im shure a plant has more so i would get it going. I planted late but an acceptable late and dont expect a yeild but i shure am happy to see something. Even better, the budding is spread out. To me it means that its really getting a good start working on a network underneath. Shure are fragile looking, I got them pretty shure the haul from Cali got too much heat,seemed brittle- a node fell off when i touched one.I think they regenerated well with good soil lots of rain and good sun.Looking forward to next year. If they are a plant and have a start may as well plant them then maybe youll get to brew next year with them.

I planted some SAAZ hops from Widsor Gardener about a month ago. Kind of late, but I said hell with it! In any case, they didnt do a whole lot for about 2 weeks then all of the sudden they started kicking butt. First time hop grower here so I cant speak to the differences between the rhizomes and plant but I can report a very happy purchase from Windsor hop farm.

I missed the window to plant rhizomes last year, so I planted growing plants from the local nursery in late July. They were maybe about 2-3' when I transplanted, I trained the strongest bines up a miniature trellis I made with bamboo, maybe 7' tall. They bines only got about 4-6' tall, and I got no harvest.

However, that's fine, you normally don't get much harvest the first year any way. What this did do was set me up well for this year. The bines grew enough that they stored plenty of energy underground for this year, and they were able to establish themselves and over-winter healthily.

This year, all 3 plants have over-topped by 14' trellis and are going strong, producing massive sidearms and burrs. Had I given up on last year and waited till this year to plant, I'd likely get no harvest this year, whereas now I should get a great harvest.

Moral of the story, buy those plants and get them in the ground!