Planting Guide for Prima Donna hop rhizome

Tips to help you plant a life-long friend:

A Good Site.

A well ventilated, sunny site is best though some light shade during the day can help the cones to form. Avoid planting directly under or close to street lights. Hops need a freely draining soil, hence the deep planting hole. If you are planting against a wall, position the rhizome about half a metre away or as far as space permits. Choose a site where there is plenty of space for the hop to grow to 2.5 metres high with a spread of about a metre at that height. Allow at least a metre between plants.

Digging the Planting Hole & preparing the backfill.

Dig a hole one foot square and at least two feet deep. Separate the top soil and sub soil. To prepare the backfill mix the top soil and compost together 50% by volume. If necessary mix some compost with the sub soil; this depends on the relative depth of top soil to sub soil in your planting hole. Mostly though you will be disposing of some sub soil, or all of it. Keep some compost back to mulch the mound.

Positioning the Rhizome in the Planting hole.

Offer up the rhizome to establish there is sufficient depth for the long dangling roots of the rhizome. Set the rhizome with the crown, that’s the thick part where the white shoots are emerging, just proud of the ground level and backfill around the roots tamping in gently. Do make sure the rhizome roots are firmly planted and the crown just emerges at ground level.

If well developed, an inch or two, remove the larger leading white shoots to slow plant down and encourage the lower buds. Then cover the crown with more backfill to form a low mound, rather like a large molehill, covering the crown to a depth of 3 -4 inches and firm up. Then mulch the mound with a layer of compost, 1- 2 inches is ample, in order to prevent rainfall washing the mound away.

The Mound.

The mound or hill is an important feature of cultivation of hops as it allows the rhizome to produce new rootlets, tiny white filament like roots, in a quickly warming environment. It also allows the climbing shoots to develop in the dark before emerging from the soil close to the crown where are more readily trained up the support twine.

Care after planting.

After planting water in and allow the rhizome to get on with the job of root formation. Shoots will emerge in May. A guide to climbing supports and training your hop will be posted on the website at www.farnhamhoppers.wordpress.com  Maintain the compost mulch around the plant throughout the growing season. Ideally the compost should not touch the new bine stems. Regular liquid applications of a high nitrogen fertiliser like Miracle Grow are beneficial while the plant is growing strongly.

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