When I was renting a house in Oregon, I planted cascade and chinook in half whiskey barrels. they grew alright… I only had them 2 seasons before my wife got pregos. The first year they were 12-15 feet tall and didn’t have any useable harvest and the second year they got 15 to 20 feet tall and I harvested enought for a 5 gallon batch fresh hop beer.
If you use whiskey barrels I would recommend drilling drainage holes and proping the barrel on something to let air under the pot the wood will mold or maybe that is a PNW thing… Also as morti mentioned try to protect from the sunniest part of the day or have a soaker on timer to keep the roots cool.
It probably doesn’t matter a great deal either way. If you watch the videos from Fresh Hops they plant them vertically. If the pros do it, there’s likely a reason. I don’t know what that reason is but I don’t argue with people who make a living at it. 8)
IANAH (I Am Not A Horticulturalist) but I suspect is has to do with how well and fast it develops roots. When the crown is sending out new bits they can either be rhyzomes (so it can spread) or roots (so it can eat) I suspect that the orientation of the member has something to do with how the plant decides this. So by planting veritcally you encourage the plant to produce roots rather than more rhyzomes and since it is still getting established this could be beneficial.
When I pant rhizomes, I make sure that the eye of the shoot is pointing in the vertical direction just about an inch under the soil. Usually that makes it so the rhizome is in the vertical position.
morti is on the right track. They’ll grow even if you plant them upside down, but for easier maintenance, vertically will help keep them from spreading too much. If you plant horizontally, some of the buds are angled upward (at about a 45 degree angle) and others downward at the same angle. The downward oriented buds will grow down and away from the rhizome and may emerge a couple feet away. All along this underground shoot, there will be more rings of buds that can continue this process year after year with more shoots popping up further and further away. So, either way will work but it helps to understand the consequences before hand. Hop ON!
I’m in North Florida and have to grow them in pots. I was told by a local brewer that he could only get Zeus to grow here and he’s right. I bought Zeus and Cascade, the zeus are already 15+ feet and the cascade never grew more than an inch, and never sprouted any roots. I thought it was a fluke so I bought 2 more cascade rhizomes and they appear to be doing the same thing.
Anyway, the zeus seem to be doing just fine in a pot…now I just have to keep spraying them with insecticidal soap because of the damned bugs.
I planted mine 2 weeks ago. Mt Hood poked through in 10 days, Cascades in 11 and just seeing the tip of the first Willamette bine today on day 15. YMMV, obviously.
I Planted almost full plants that I pulled out of a garden from a club member. Cascade, Nugget and Sterling. They got a slow start I think from shock but have been going a couple of inches a day over the last few days. I didn’t clip too many sprouts, I figured more green=more food to get started on.
My magnum bines are about 4 feet tall already, at my old place.
What latitude does it normally grow at and how close is that to yours? My crude understanding of hops is that similar latitudes will support similar hops.