Grass Clippings
The importance of grass clippings
The good weather of late has led to another surge in the amount of grass coming off all surfaces. Estimating the ‘yield’ in the bottom of a grass catcher box is an idiosyncratic addiction for most turf managers. You can tell a lot about the state of the grass plant from the clippings you cut.
Nutrient analysis carried out on grass clippings gives a rudimentary idea of nitrogen levels in the plant. You can also understand whether the plant is in good health or just surviving and, as a result, we check the cut of the machine from the clippings we clip.
Sharp cutting reels, to cleanly sever the grass blades, are one of the most important factors involved with mowing grass. Torn and badly cut grass blades can aid turf disease populating across surfaces. The department mechanic, Steve Brookman, has a devoted section of workshop that grinds and resharpens the reels to keep them ‘on-cut’ for use. A major proportion of his time is spent checking, adjusting, and servicing blades across the different forms of mowing devices across the different surfaces and sports at the Club. Per season, Steve will grind over 150 individual cylinder units and some 60 rotary mower blades. Cylinder units, which cut on a scissor action, will leave the workshop razor sharp – enough to cut paper cleanly. The work of the mechanic and the role of preparing the mowing equipment is a vital part of the process of preparing the course and grounds every day and ensuring that we are giving the best service possible.
Not so soggy
The summer rains have been deceiving. We are seeing a rise in the grass growth but in other, deep-rooted plants, we have started to see stress indicators showing that there isn’t moisture at depth. The Environment Agency says parts of East Anglia remain in drought because of residual impacts on groundwater. Devon and Cornwall also remain in drought because of low water levels in two strategic public water supply reservoirs despite heavy Atlantic showers sweeping in over the past few months. The London area has escaped relatively unscathed from hose pipe bans and restrictions, due to the downpours we have experienced. The impact on trees however is still evident and a greater threat to their wellbeing. Although I’ll be unpopular with this statement; I am hoping for more rain come September!
Divot despair
Warning! The next item may offend some and hopefully enlighten others who regularly use the golf course. Now you have probably heard the next item countless times, but I still find it astonishing that golfers do not repair pitch marks. Call me old fashioned, but holding a door open for someone approaching said opening was drilled into me as having manners. Good manners percolates through all facets of life and across all social borders. It’s the unwritten rules, rather than the written laws of society which keeps civilisation descending into collapse. So … why do golfers not practice good manners towards one another? I’m sure golfers find it annoying that a pitch mark has been left unrepaired, especially if it sits in the middle of the pathway of their ball to putt out. But it happens daily. The United States Golf Association have spent fistfuls of dollars on university studies to prove that unrepaired pitch marks cause greater damage to a green than one which is repaired immediately after the act. Yet, I can find dozens of pitch marks each and every morning I inspect the greens. Pitch marks compromise the surfaces, leading to lack of trueness of the greens and general unevenness. The grounds team do try and repair, as they mow greens and prep the course in the mornings, but their main efforts are to mow and get ahead of the golfers who are running up the fairways behind them. Sadly, an action that takes less than 30 seconds of thoughtfulness, will impact on the rest of the membership enjoying the course.
The Club Gardens – a potted history
The Club’s gardens have a fascinating history which, through the decades, has evolved as fashions have changed and the justification for space has impacted all facets of the Club. As most Members will know, the Miller brothers, Edward, George, and Charles were ex-military men and founding Members of the Club. The youngest brother, Charles located the property and leased the land from both the Upper Grove and Lower Grove estates to lay out several polo fields, croquet, and a small putting golf course. The Club opened its doors on 1st April 1902 and naturally attracted military gentlemen, especially from the Life Guards, Hussars and Lancers.
In 1911, the Club was faced with the threat that the lease of the land would be discontinued, and the estate broken into auction sized lots for development. The founders galvanized behind the Millers to buy the property out right, which they had done by 1913. With the sale agreed, an amount of investment was made across the sports and the sum, equivalent to £30,000 in today’s money was spent on buying plants to lay out a walled garden near to the Clubhouse. The proviso for this spend was that the roses purchased were to be cared for by Charles Miller and only he was charged with the task of pruning them. The Water Garden, now known as the Sunken Garden is laid out in the Edwardian fashion and is heavily influenced by the Gertrude Jekyll style.
Gertrude Jekyll was one of the most influential and historical figures in the contemporary Arts and Crafts movement. The lay out of the gardens have a fundamental Jekyll trait, in that a series of pathways which run either north / south or east / west bisect each other to create several vista points. By using various hard landscape materials: limestone paving, and dry laid stone walling, ornamental ironwork, and red brick work, the gardens give an air of being part of the environment for longer than they have.
Gertrude Jekyll was an artist and craftswoman who began to specialise in gardening when her myopic eyesight forced her to abandon intricate work. Her skilled approach to arranging plants is founded in her talents as a painter and watercolourist. Herbaceous planting and roses would have been the main pallet for the Head Gardener to utilise at the Club in the 1920’s. An extension to the walled garden was created in 1922, when the Club was in a renewed period of financial stability and Colonial Miller was increasingly eager to provide a programme of events and facilities for the growing membership. He wrote, ‘give them (the Members) an attractive lawn and garden where they can wander about and rest undisturbed by games.’
By 1925, the Illustrated London News wrote with admiration for the Club and gardens. In an article of the day, it was said ‘An evening at the Roehampton Club dancing in the pavilion open to the air, and the delightful grounds in which to saunter or sit out, is one of the pleasantest amusements of the London Season’. In particular of the gardens, the same publication gushed that they were, ‘among the finest of their kind anywhere in England’. The extension to the garden, pursued the craze of the era for an oriental-themed styling. Either side of the long walk, to the band stand, where the padel tennis courts and Croquet Lawn Four now reside, two pools were created that mirrored each other with a crest moon shape. A stone bridge bisected each pond. By the mid 1930’s, it was said that the gardens ‘seemed lovelier each year, and by now they contained over 2,000 roses, all pruned personally by Charles Miller’. By the outbreak of WWII, many Members resigned and had taken up arms in the forces, the Club’s fortunes took a big hit during the proceedings. Parts of the grounds were used by 27th County of London Battalion and the local Home Guard regiment. Elements of the gardens and grounds were devoted to allotments to help supplement the kitchens.
Post-war Britian was a different country to when it entered the war. The Club also reflected this change and from the 1950’s the dynamics of the Club began to change. Initially polo was disbanded as a sport at the Club and the golf course was extended. By the 1960’s the tired old wood structure of the Clubhouse was deemed not fit for purpose and by 1969 the new glass and steel structure replaced the much-loved colonial style original. The new building was placed off centre to the garden layout, so the entrance and back exit of the ground floor did not align with the axis of the sunken garden or the focus point of the bandstand. The oriental gardens were lost in the 1980’s with the development of the new sports hall building which housed the original gym suit and the lying out of a bowling green, which became a croquet lawn eventually. Into the new millennium, more value has been placed on preserving the heritage of the Club and the health benefits that gardens can profit the members as a place to use as an oasis of calm away from modern life. As well as having a multi-faceted role as being a venue for Members’ events throughout the year. In essence, Colonial Miller’s edict of giving an ‘attractive lawn and garden where they can wander about and rest undisturbed by games’ has been re-invented for a modern age.