Question about hops 'suckers'.

I moved into a rental house last winter, and found out mid way through last summer that those terrible vines in the garden that were scratching my arms up were actually hops vines! What a discovery!

I had intended to harvest them and dry them out to make my own beer, but I left it too long and they looked like they were spotted with black mould. Disappointed, I resolved to do better next year.

Well, that time is now, and I went out this morning to start to train my hops vine up a string to a handy pole that was in the garden (for this very purpose, I can only assume). However, I found two spots where the vines were growing, maybe two metres apart.

I gave the forums a quick look, but what I wanted to know was if I actually had two plants? Or if it's just shoots from one that have gone over and grown up, and will then be sucking vigour out of the main plant? How can I tell, do I just carefully check to see if it has it's own rhizome?

P: Typing it out, it seems a little silly, but the hops grew so wild last year that I'd really like to try to control it this year. And it would be so fancy to have hops vines trained!

 

Might be the original hop plant. They can have shoots travel and come up pretty far from the main plant. You can grab the shoot you do not want and pull it gently out of the ground while following it. Chances are it will go back to the main root ball. Cut it once you get back to the main plant.

You should be fine to have two main vines from one rhizome. Mine are established enough now that I have four vines per plant.

 

A healthy established hop plant is bent on expansion and will send runners at various depths all over the place to pop up who knows how far from mama.

If you want to propagate your plant you can take advantage of a distant runner by allowing it to sprout and start sending it's own bines up, then cut it free from its parent...

Cheers!

 

Welcome to the forums,

That sounds like the typical spacing you'd find between two different plants. A few inches, under the soil surface, are "hop crowns", which will send shoots up, becoming bines.

 

Thanks for all the replies! As soon as the ground dries out a bit more, I'll check and see if it's a plant or a shoot.

I managed to get the string tied to the random pole before work today, and wound the hops bines around it. As soon as my garden is a little cleaner, I'll post some pics!