Grass Clippings
Wash out
There have been two significant weather events this month. The first is that we have had a month’s quota of rain in the first full week in two heavy shower hits. This soil is now saturated and subsequent rain, which has fallen this week will lie on the surface until the water movement from below allows it to drain to a lower depth.
Percolation rates of soils vary depending on the composition of the soil make up. The percentage of the size of the soil particles and how they correlate together creates the soil texture. Although we have a relatively (for London) good soil on site, which is a well-draining loam soil, all soils will reach a point where the volume of water falling at a greater rate than it can drain, will reach field capacity, or excess surface water.
A lot of surface water of late has drained away however and even when we have had 20+ mm of rain in one event a day, to allow this water to displace means that the course is in good condition to take more play and the implications of foot traffic.
What creates lasting damage to the course is to play directly after a high intensity flood event. Foot fall traffic, trolleys and carts can, on a grass surface which is saturated, compress a surface and remove the air spaces out of the profile. Pure mud is a solution of water and soil particles that have no air spaces in the mixture. It has no structure and as a growing medium for grass, it has little beneficial basis. Grass roots need soil with airspaces within them to grow. Try to establish grass seed on an area of mud and it is difficult to have a consistent sward of grass to flourish. Roots need to have oxygen in and around them and will transport this element to other parts of the plant. Greenkeeping consists of a lot of physical practices to aerate and create artificial channels for oxygen to enter the soil and allow water to be drawn downwards. As much as we wish to, the conditions for this work must also be suitable to allow machines out of the stable without causing more damage and issues.
Which leads on to the second point. November’s temperatures are averaging at 10o C, at the time of writing. The normal temperature trend is to be around or below 3o C, with at least an average of seven frosts on a cycle of ten days. This year we haven’t had a single ground frost to date. We measure grass growth by a scale devised for the agricultural industry which measures cereal growth by Growth Degree Days (GGD). By gauging GGD we can forecast the likelihood of disease on the turf surfaces and try to identify when we need to preventatively treat the surfaces. By now in November, we would have usually descended to less than a handful of GGD for the month. Whereas the reality for this November is that the rate of days where we have growth will be equal to the growth patterns of July or August of this year. This unseasonable growth creates the dilemma that we have to be very cautious when we attempt to cut any surfaces. The average fairway or rough cutting machine will weigh over two tons and even with oversized turf tyres, can create a lot of damage if used in in the wrong conditions. Managing grass growth in such conditions isn’t easy, as we have to decide what will be the best conditions for a task rather than when we feel it’s appropriate.
These issues will be the dilemmas for the future of UK greenkeeping. Rather than have the predictability that winter is the period of consolidation, when projects are undertaken, the transformation of global weather change will create uncertainty around the shape or form of future winters.
Some years will offer ‘normal’ winters with frosts and possibly a smattering of snow when the jet stream drags down a cold front from the north. But the trend will more likely swing towards the shape and form we have now – warm and wet conditions with rainfall figures greater than anything we have experienced in the past coupled with conditions which are consummate to encouraging grass growth.
As Sophocles said ‘None loves the messenger who brings bad news’, but a messenger in all intents and purposes I may be. All of those whose vocation is land based will have recognised the subtle changes now happening. The old adage ‘adapt to survive’ is now truer than ever.
New park for south London
It isn’t very often that a new park is to be created in any city in the UK these days. Less so in the capital where land is at a premium. But a 13-hectare park is set to open in south London as part of a £150m scheme. The park is at Springfield Village, Springfield University Hospital’s 32ha development in Tooting in the London Borough of Wandsworth. In January 2020, South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust announced it had secured government approval for the redevelopment of Springfield University Hospital. Plans are to develop the Springfield Hospital site to include mental health facilities, 800 homes, a care home, a school and the biggest new park to open in London since the Olympic Village in Stratford. The park will include a pavilion café, an amphitheatre, gardens, children’s playgrounds, ponds, a youth shelter and areas for ball games and hundreds of trees.
Dazzling daffodils
Visitors to Hever Castle and Gardens will be encouraged from 13-19 March 2023 to step back in time this spring and immerse themselves in a dazzling wonderland of daffodils. Encouraged by daffodil expert Johnny Walkers and head gardener Neil Miller, visitors will be allowed into Anne Boleyn’s Orchard on twice-daily tours to experience what it would have felt like when daffodils first bloomed en masse at the Castle in the Edwardian era. Nearly 70,000 daffodils (with some estimates suggesting 250,000 blooms) will be in evidence across the estate from the banks of the famous outer moat, around Lake Walk, to Sunday Walk and beside the Festival Theatre, many of which were planted by Astor at the turn of the twentieth century.
Neil Miller, head gardener at the famous Castle in Kent, known as the place where the Belle Époque of gardening really took hold thanks to the vision of former owner William Waldorf Astor. The gardening team have planted 10,000 extra daffodils. 7,000 in the area known as Acer Dell and 3,000 on Woodland Walk. Twice daily tours will be given by Neil Miller and daffodil expert Johnny Walkers between 13-17 March at 11:30am and 2:00pm. On 18-19 March Hever’s gardeners will offer tours at 11:30am. William Waldorf Astor was known to be a fan of the daffodil and instructed his gardeners to ‘plant daffodils’ everywhere on the Estate. Hever Castle and Gardens was purchased by Astor (the richest man in America at the time) in 1903 and from 1904-1908 he created one of the famous Edwardian pleasure gardens in the UK at Hever, a creation that continues to delight so many today.