Grass Clippings
News from the course and grounds
I’m sure that everyone has noticed a nip in the air in the evenings and last Friday was the autumnal equinox, the halfway point between our longest and shortest days of the year. Technically, an equinox is not a day-long astronomical event, it is a brief moment in time when the sun appears directly over the Earth’s equator. Therefore, as we go forward into autumn, the days are officially going to get shorter.
It’s not a coincidence that at this time of the year we renovate and over-seed the tennis courts and drill in seed on the course. September is the optimum time, after the summer heat, to get grass to germinate. While ground temperatures continue to drop, we are in the range where we can get good results and any rain showers will keep the process going. We have had great germination on the tennis courts already and that this new grass will, all being good, develop, strengthen and be the surface that Members will enjoy next season.
The seeding on the golf course is a lengthy process in contrast and we tend to drill the seed into the ground to give it the best chance for survival. The one major difference between seeding the tennis courts and the golf course is that the course remains open during this process, hence the need to drill the seed into the ground to allow it to strike and grow.
The bounce back this year, particularly in the roughs which usually go into shut down in a hot summer has been remarkable and made such a difference. The new fencing for the 10th tee will be installed in mid-October and therefore we are pruning the trees in this area in preparation.
Other activities on the course, including the landscaping behind the 12th green can now be completed, since the fencing at the back of the green has been installed. We anticipate that the fencing company will instal the fence on the 10th tee in early October and therefore we are pruning the trees in this area to ensure that there isn’t an issue when they arrive.
Come the cooler damp weather, come what we call ‘worm season’. Usually, the varieties of worms that inhabit the soils here will drive down deeper in the summer and only surface in the winter casting soil on the surface in these months. This is partially due to them sensing the change in temperature changes and also the need to avoid waterlogged conditions lower down. Like us, worms need to breath oxygen and in the winter the more favourable area to do this is to be closer to the grass. To remove the casting debris from the fairways, we will daily drive the fairways at first light with a large, tractor-mounted rotating brush which sweeps away the casting piles. In October we will also be aerating the fairways with a piece of kit called a ‘vertidrain’. Once this is completed, we will apply the autumn application of sand top dressing.
Just a reminder to Members also, we have the autumn renovation on the golf greens starting on 3rd October. As we have done in the past few years, we shall alternate the activities to ensure nine holes remain open during the week.
The repair of pitch marks on the greens is an important part of playing the course throughout the year but especially as we approach the wetter winter. The greatest impact is felt by the fellow Members who play the course after you. Pitch mark repairs made immediately will allow the grass to recover faster and seamlessly. A study conducted a good few years ago at an American university proved the longer a pitch mark was left unrepaired, the greater damage it impacted on the green’s quality. The same is true with divots on fairways and roughs. The simple act of replacing what has been removed can keep the course in good condition during the harsh months. Even though the greenkeepers will regularly fill divots, once the temperatures drop, seed in a divot isn’t going to germinate in the conditions we face in the cold months ahead. Please respect your course and it will serve you with many happy hours of golf throughout the year.
Tree talk
There has been a lot of tree news in the industry news feeds this week and due to the sad news of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, there has been a warning from tree nurseries that stock levels are depleting due to the number of people wanting to populate areas with memorial trees. Following the wishes of the Patron, His Majesty the King, The Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC) initiative will be extended to the end of March 2023 to give people the opportunity to plant trees in memoriam to honour Her Majesty. There has been a surge in tree purchasing in the last week especially for English oaks and that is predicted to continue. Other plant items which have seen an up-lift in demand in the last week and include varieties of plants that were named have the Queen in the last several decades which are still in production, include rose varieties, and rhododendrons.
At a recent meeting of local authority tree officers, the fall out of ash tree die back was a main topic of conversation. Ash trees have been affected by a virulent fungus that causes ash dieback, a chronic fungal disease of ash trees in Europe characterised by leaf loss and crown dieback in infected trees. It has been outlined that the treescape of the British Isles is going to change in the next decade and has been compared to the Dutch Elm disease epidemic of the 1970’s. Local authorities are going to start to remove ash trees from the landscape if there are any slight signs of failure within the tree. Unlike other diseases which effect trees which allow them to remain standing and monitor the trees’ ability to fight the pathogen. Ash die back is so unpredictable that the risk of the tree limb breaking off or total collapse is too great to risk to manage safely. The ash is such a mainstay of the tree population of the UK that its absence is going to be missed. It’s an unfortunate consequence of climate change and the lack of quarantine requirements for the movement of trees in the last decade that has led to this situation.
Westminster City Council have reported that trees from the dismantled Marble Arch Mound will be used to build gardens and a play area on the Ebury estate in Pimlico, central London. The planned redevelopment, which will also include 758 new flats, ‘will offer more amenity space for local residents.’ The Mound opened in July 2021 in a bid to bring back visitors to the West End of London post-Covid but the £6m constructed hill drew criticism for its unfinished planting and expense.
Some £225,000 extra was spent on plants to patch up the threadbare attraction, and Westminster council also spent £1.1 million on hiring scaffolding, £1.4 million on sub-contractors, £100,000 on extra fences and railings and £983,000 on staff.
The initial entrance fee was removed and now the mound attracted its 200,000 target visitor numbers by December 2021.