Hops are at the top.

[slomo]

So its cool that my plants have grown into monsters, but I am concerned about what is going to happen next. My ghetto trellis system seems to not be tall enough, and two of my hop plants are about a foot away from the top.

Admittedly my system is not as tall as it should be, about 16-17 feet. What will happen when the plants begin to grow past their trellis?

TIA

 

[jagg]

So its cool that my plants have grown into monsters, but I am concerned about what is going to happen next. My ghetto trellis system seems to not be tall enough, and two of my hop plants are about a foot away from the top.

Admittedly my system is not as tall as it should be, about 16-17 feet. What will happen when the plants begin to grow past their trellis?

TIA

They will grow down instead of up.

 

[slomo]

Thats good to know I wasn't sure if the vines would break under their weight. Thanks for the response.

 

[homebeerbrewer]

My trellis is about the same height, and last year, they just bent over the top rail and down. They decided to stop growing after hanging down about 4 feet, and then pushed out a bunch of hop cones. I'm not sure if it was the time of year that caused them to do that, or if it was the fact that they didn't have any more room to grow, but it worked. Mine are about 3-4 tall right now, still a long way to go.

 

[cheezydemon3]

Ideally, if you use line, you can just pay out more line.

A fixed trellis?

I might uproot it and boost it up.

If you can fix line or sticks or something to extend it, do.

I have one hop bine growing up some twine that is tied up high in a freaking TREE!!!

Good luck.

 

[Retrofit]

My 2nd year hops grow on the side of my two story home. When they got to my roof which is maybe 20ish feet up, they reached for the sky and grew up until they couldn't support their own weight and then sort of drooped down.

I'm following Cheezy's advice for my backyard hops. I can't justify a 20' trellis in my backyard without neighbors killing me or calling the cops on me. I'm going to do 10' trellis with lines that I can drop down to allow the hops to keep growing. What am I going to do with 10' or 'dropped' hops? I dunno. Loop it on my fence? Probably.

 

[GodsStepBrother]

I actually thought of how bizarre it would seems to have a 20ft pole up in my backyard so i put a 7 ft poll on one side of the yard, with a 4 foot pole intersecting it, so that it formed a big T. I then put two hop rhizomes next to it about 4 feet apart and put rope from the ground up one side of the t and send it to the roof on the other side of the yard (same thing for the other side of the T). I know it is not vertical but it is at a nice angle that i hope they will climb up, and it will give some shade!