Decorating with hops ? (question mark)

[tjpfeister]

Has anyone decorated anything with hop bines before? My wedding is in 4 weeks and I have 37 bines that I intend to sacrifice for decoration. My intention is to harvest the entire bine the morning-of. I am figuring that some 12+ hours later, that the foliage may become limp and lackluster if left to hemorrhage from the act of cutting. That said, has anybody done this before and what have you done to combat my fear? Or are my fears unfounded? I am considering dipping the clipped portion in some sort of sealer to prevent "bleed-out" after harvesting... thoughts on materials? Thanks guys

 

[day_trippr]

Jeeze. Trying to think back to the last three harvests and how the bines looked near the end of the stripping-fest, and my best recollection is they still looked pretty fresh roughly six hours after they'd been whacked from the crown. That's quite aways from 12+ hours though.

How 'bout standing the cut ends in water? Think that might keep them hydrated?

Cheers!

 

[SeeMont]

We have a couple of breweries that have run bines around the rooms, around columns, over arches and around windows. I believe they were done green and then left to dry and turn a yellow color, It is pretty. Good Luck and congrats.

 

[DarkCoder]

Never tried it...but having done some cuttings to start new plants, I can say that the more leaves you have, the more water they need to "drink" to stay firm (transpiration).


What about keeping them in water for as long as you can and use florist vials when it's time to put them in place ? Just an idea...

 

[GVH_Dan]

We have people come out to get bines for weddings all the time. Usually, the groomsmen come out the day before and pick them as sort of a pre-bachelor party.

(Funny aside, despite our urging otherwise, they usually strip down in the hot sun which has to lead to a real nasty case of hop rash that night and the next day.)

Anyway, they will add hop clusters to bouquets and table displays. Many will take a few bines to add to some sort of trellis over the head table or in the ceremony. The biggest thing is to keep them separated from each other. Otherwise they will start to compost faster. The bines tend to dry out nicely because they send the water to the cones but you could try keeping them in water.

I would say experiment with a couple before the big day. Maybe just a sidearm if you don't have the bines to spare.

 

[tjpfeister]

In case this somehow gets a zombie revival... My wedding, nearly three months ago, went off amazingly well. The hops were amazing and gathered many compliments. They were cut that morning and by evening were only starting to wither. For what it's worth, many guests were plucking the cones and launching them into the beer to make wet hop beverages ;-)

 

[CorporateHippie]

Wish I would have known.....I would have been out back brewing a BIG OL' HOP BOMB!!:rockin:

 

[beaston]

This is pretty cool, I wish I had thought of this for my wedding.

 

[tjpfeister]

Sorry guys, I tried to upload a pile of wedding photos to show off ideas but the file size caused the upload to fail. Here's a teaser for now, I'll resize some more at a later time.