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This may work out altogether badly, but my new hop plants just arrived from germany.

I have 4 plant, 2 different varieties...2 Taurus and 2 Tettnanger.

I'll keep ye updated as to any progress

I just got four new varieties myself - Cascade, Willamette, Saaz, and Nugget from my sister in the US. But with the Challenger and Fuggles planted since last Spring there's little room left!

I am waiting for four plants from the german site too, going to put them on the allotment. All the books say the roots take at least a year to get established, and that seems to be true. I put down fuggles last year and it barely got a metre tall (I planted way too late though the garden was a building site til july). This year it sprouted a few weeks ago and it's already about 18 inches tall and looking strong! I have three other varieties in the garden but they're new this spring so not much of a peep from them, except I see a little mini shoot from the challenger poking its head up!

Keep us informed of the german varieties. we can compare notes. Where are you growing? Wall? pole?

I'm gonna try to train 2 of them horizontally along a fence, and the other 2 on a pole...I'll compare the two attempts afterwards. If there's not too much difference, I'll stick with the horizontal training. I won't know until next year though