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Unknown grape-like vine. ID, please?

Skylark001Skylark001 Posts: 74
in Plants
This creeping plant is like a grape vine, but the leaves are thin and there have been no flowers or fruit.  It's growing 300m above sea-level on the Wales-Herefordshire border.  Does anybody know what this is? 
 










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  • thevictorianthevictorian Posts: 1,115
    edited August 2022
    I think it's a hop not a grape. Grapes don't cling on like that and have different stems.
  • Slow-wormSlow-worm Posts: 1,576
    Yes, I remember hop picking in my youth in late August/September, so they'll be flowering soon. 
    I'm still traumatised from it and can't stand the smell of hops to this day! 😄
  • Skylark001Skylark001 Posts: 74
    edited August 2022
    Oh!  Hops!  How exciting!  So we have something to look forward to then.  Thank you!

    (Having now looked up hops in Wikipedia I see that they are toxic to dogs, which may explain why the deer which wander through our garden have not so much as even nibbled the hop tower although we've seen them grazing all around it many times.)


  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 86,863
    Yes, it's a wild hop ... they come in male and female form ... if yours is a male you won't get the flowers for brewing beer I'm afraid 😢🍻

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • Skylark001Skylark001 Posts: 74
    Ah!  Well, that is still something for us to look forward to: discovering the sex of our hop! 😁
  • bertrand-mabelbertrand-mabel Posts: 2,583
    @Skylark001 we planted 2 hops in different areas of the garden many years ago. Regretted it ever since! The golden one thankfully did give up after we cut it back time and time again but the wild one.....still with us and difficult to "dig" out as it has now become mixed in with other plants. Also need to wear gloves and cover your arms (well I do) as the leaves are an irritant.
  • Skylark001Skylark001 Posts: 74
    @bertrand-mabel, when we moved in to this property in autumn almost one year ago I found two broken pots filled with soil with short bits of dried bine sticking out.  I put the soil on the ground beside the trunk of a tall ornamental cherry tree and this spring noticed fresh bines emerging, so I gave them a triangular wire structure to climb.  But as they've now been identified as hops and if they don't provide an attractive display by the end of September, then I may take the metal structure away (for a worthier plant) and next year lead the bines over to the naked trunk of the cherry tree and let it run up and decorate that.  What do you think to this plan?
  • GardenerSuzeGardenerSuze Posts: 5,261
    @Skylark001 Don't prune it wearing a white tee shirt stains don't come off!
    Looking forward to my new garden with clay soil here in South Notts.

    Gardening is so exciting I wet my plants. 
  • bertrand-mabelbertrand-mabel Posts: 2,583
    On our experience...don't
  • Skylark001Skylark001 Posts: 74
    @bertrand-mabel.  What would happen?
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