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Hey, my bones have reached the top of my garage and I’m not sure what to do. If I leave them as is, am I risking the nines continuing to grown and then breaking off at the top without anything to climb? Or could I expect that they continue across the roof (in which case will the heat from the shingles have a negative effect...). Anyway, this is where I’m at, looking for any suggestions or reassurance. Thanks in advance.



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I mean bines (not bones or nines) ffs.


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They'll just fall over and turn into a bit of a tangled mess growing into itself. I doubt they'll break.

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andrewhines1984 wrote:I mean bines (not bones or nines) ffs.


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I just thought I was getting hip to some new hop lingo..........

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Halifax_Jeff wrote:They'll just fall over and turn into a bit of a tangled mess growing into itself. I doubt they'll break.

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Suppose it’s possible to redirect them using twine?


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Halifax_Jeff wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 09, 2020 12:42 pm

They'll just fall over and turn into a bit of a tangled mess growing into itself. I doubt they'll break.

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This has been my experience on the end of my shop but it is no problem if they are all the same type. This is what my cascades end up looking like:

Alright. Your guys’ hops dwarf mine and mine have been in the ground for 4 or 5 years now.
Have never climbed more than 10 ft. I gotta figure out where I’m messing up. These things are supposed to be like weeds (which grow fine in my yard btw).
Mine are in a south facing area and this year I took to fertilizing them. Didn’t help.
I checked out a few YouTube videos and the only thing I can think - is that I’m not trimming back the ‘bull shoots’ early in the spring?

Have you guys done anything different to get yours where they’re at ?
Any help appreciated.



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ackes wrote:Alright. Your guys’ hops dwarf mine and mine have been in the ground for 4 or 5 years now.
Have never climbed more than 10 ft. I gotta figure out where I’m messing up. These things are supposed to be like weeds (which grow fine in my yard btw).
Mine are in a south facing area and this year I took to fertilizing them. Didn’t help.
I checked out a few YouTube videos and the only thing I can think - is that I’m not trimming back the ‘bull shoots’ early in the spring?

Have you guys done anything different to get yours where they’re at ?
Any help appreciated.



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Mine are in year two. I have one string each of Williamette, Cascade, and Chinook. As for as the other five strings I’ve got growing, I got the hop rhizomes for free from Cam at Schoolhouse and they are either Cascade or EKG. I haven’t identified every bine yet.

I have mostly green bines with the exception being my Chinook string; I have two purple bines. Thanks for bringing the term “bull shoots” to my attention.

Mine are also South facing. Some are growing better than others; my Chinook and Cascade/EKG are my best. My Williamette is a little slow.

I let my crowns grown out until I had 6 shoots measuring one foot. Then I cut back the rest to about an inch and loaded up the crowns with sheep manure. I massaged it into the soil and also left a mound on top.

Mine are trained around some twine that has them growing out from the eaves of my shed. I figured this would give them more sun exposure, especially those on the west side of My garage. I water mine when it’s really dry, but otherwise leave them be.


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ackes wrote:Alright. Your guys’ hops dwarf mine and mine have been in the ground for 4 or 5 years now.
Have never climbed more than 10 ft. I gotta figure out where I’m messing up. These things are supposed to be like weeds (which grow fine in my yard btw).
Mine are in a south facing area and this year I took to fertilizing them. Didn’t help.
I checked out a few YouTube videos and the only thing I can think - is that I’m not trimming back the ‘bull shoots’ early in the spring?

Have you guys done anything different to get yours where they’re at ?
Any help appreciated.



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Mine are in year two. I have one string each of Williamette, Cascade, and Chinook. As for as the other five strings I’ve got growing, I got the hop rhizomes for free from Cam at Schoolhouse and they are either Cascade or EKG. I haven’t identified every bine yet.

I have mostly green bines with the exception being my Chinook string; I have two purple bines. Thanks for bringing the term “bull shoots” to my attention.

Mine are also South facing. Some are growing better than others; my Chinook and Cascade/EKG are my best. My Williamette is a little slow.

I let my crowns grown out until I had 6 shoots measuring one foot. Then I cut back the rest to about an inch and loaded up the crowns with sheep manure. I massaged it into the soil and also left a mound on top.

Mine are trained around some twine that has them growing out from the eaves of my shed. I figured this would give them more sun exposure, especially those on the west side of My garage. I water mine when it’s really dry, but otherwise leave them be.


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ackes wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 10, 2020 9:15 pm

Alright. Your guys’ hops dwarf mine and mine have been in the ground for 4 or 5 years now.
Have never climbed more than 10 ft. I gotta figure out where I’m messing up. These things are supposed to be like weeds (which grow fine in my yard btw).
Mine are in a south facing area and this year I took to fertilizing them. Didn’t help.
I checked out a few YouTube videos and the only thing I can think - is that I’m not trimming back the ‘bull shoots’ early in the spring?

Have you guys done anything different to get yours where they’re at ?
Any help appreciated.



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Good fertile, well draining soil is probably one of the biggest things. Next is watering and maintenance. The plants in my picture (from last year) above were around 4 years old and are also planted on the south side. I mixed a lot of good compost into the soil there and watered them frequently during the first summer they were there. Once you get your three or four bines growing up you lines, try to keep the rest of the growth coming from the crown trimmed back so the plants can concentrate on sending everything to those few bines. During the winter months I dump all of my spent grains and yeast trub there and in the spring they come flying up out of it. Over the summer it rots down into the ground and provides them with more nutrients. I never use any chemical fertilizers. Hope that helps!

Awesome. Thanks fellas.

I’ve been doing most of those things. But to be honest - I just learned about the ‘bull shoot’ term too. So I’ll make sure I trim those back next year and see if that helps.

I also might dig around them and try and improve the soil for next year.

Love the idea of dumping the spent grains / hops and yeast over them.

By the way - I’ve got 4 varieties: cascade / willamette/ Columbus / and centennial.
My Columbus and willamette seem to do the best. Maybe they’re the most suited for this climate / soil.


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I've got my Centennial in a 30diameter pot. I have 2 bines growing 1 at about 5ft and the other 3ft. I planted them this spring.
They seem to go through growth spurts. Does anyone else have this? They are also stuck at this height for the last 2 weeks.
Can anyone recommend something I can do. I was thinking of trying a fertilizer but was wondering if there was anything else.
Thanks for any input.

buddha3004 wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 14, 2020 11:40 am

I've got my Centennial in a 30diameter pot. I have 2 bines growing 1 at about 5ft and the other 3ft. I planted them this spring.
They seem to go through growth spurts. Does anyone else have this? They are also stuck at this height for the last 2 weeks.
Can anyone recommend something I can do. I was thinking of trying a fertilizer but was wondering if there was anything else.
Thanks for any input.

I've only noticed growth spurts when it is really hot and they are not getting enough water they'll pretty much stop growing until they start getting frequent watering again. Hops do require a lot of nutrients though and since you have them in pots where their soil accessibility is limited, they may have depleted the soil. I would recommend adding some compost or some standard fertilizer and watering frequently.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the info. Think I will try some fertilizer.
Will get it into the ground once I know of a more permanent location. We only just bought a house in December so it is the first time knowing where the sun really gets to.

buddha3004 wrote:I've got my Centennial in a 30diameter pot. I have 2 bines growing 1 at about 5ft and the other 3ft. I planted them this spring.
They seem to go through growth spurts. Does anyone else have this? They are also stuck at this height for the last 2 weeks.
Can anyone recommend something I can do. I was thinking of trying a fertilizer but was wondering if there was anything else.
Thanks for any input.

I didn’t realize this until I started looking into it - but I guess the vertical growth on these plants stops at the summer solstice each year. So that’s as much vertical growth you can expect.
After that - they start shooting out those side bines which are the ones that give off the hop cones.
Should start seeing cones around Aug 1st. I threw that date in the calendar on my phone.
But had no idea about the vertical growth stopping around June 21st.

I’ll be cutting my ‘bull shoots’ next year.
Adding more fertilizer
Digging around and putting more soil around rhizomes
Dumping spent grains and hops over the area.

See where that gets me next year.


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Mine are still climbing like crazy. I think the summer solstice is a pacific northwest thing.

I heard from fundy hop growers that they use pellitized urea as it is a mega dose of nitrogen. You can get it at halifax seed. But it is also an unstable form of nitrogen as the urea converts to ammonia which can off-gas the nutritional nitrogen so best to bury a bit when feeding and when its cooler, i.e. evening to minimize burn off and allow it a chance to absorb into the soil.

Just FYI in case you decide to try urea, Halifax seed has it in 25kg bags, but no 1kg ones at the moment.

Yeah, my hops have grown at least 8 feet this month.

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ackes wrote:

buddha3004 wrote:I've got my Centennial in a 30diameter pot. I have 2 bines growing 1 at about 5ft and the other 3ft. I planted them this spring.
They seem to go through growth spurts. Does anyone else have this? They are also stuck at this height for the last 2 weeks.
Can anyone recommend something I can do. I was thinking of trying a fertilizer but was wondering if there was anything else.
Thanks for any input.

I didn’t realize this until I started looking into it - but I guess the vertical growth on these plants stops at the summer solstice each year. So that’s as much vertical growth you can expect.
After that - they start shooting out those side bines which are the ones that give off the hop cones.
Should start seeing cones around Aug 1st. I threw that date in the calendar on my phone.
But had no idea about the vertical growth stopping around June 21st.

I’ll be cutting my ‘bull shoots’ next year.
Adding more fertilizer
Digging around and putting more soil around rhizomes
Dumping spent grains and hops over the area.

See where that gets me next year.


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Good advice.

Ideally you want them at the top of your trellis by the time the solstice hits.

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