Roger's Pick: hop gardening

As a lifetime gardener and landscape designer, I had never grown that intriguing and mysterious plant called Humulus lupulus (hops) before this year.

The hop plant is a hardy, perennial which produces annual vines from a permanent root stock known as a rhizome. Vines may grow up to 25 feet in a single season but will die back to the crown each fall and live off the energy stored in the woody roots.

Hops are dioecious, which means they have separate male and female plants. Only the female produces the flowers that are used for beer brewing or medicinal purposes.

Hops are found wild in Western E...