Spread It, Vertical It, Trim It, Fill It and Please DON'T Step Through It

 What a rollercoaster its been over the last few weeks with our work here at Glen Echo. This week we're reaching the peak and heading down the biggest drop. All of our grounds responsibilities are coming together to start all at once but our staff along with some pretty good weather I must say are knocking it out of the park with a couple twisty loops in between.

SPREAD IT

The pandemic has created some shipping issues with parts in repairing some of our needed pieces of equipment. Our spreader is down and with the onset of warmer weather our zoysia is hungry and ready to move a bit so we borrowed a spreader from the best Super I know, my brother and spread a couple tons on our fairways over the past couple of days. Little more spreading to do as well with a little nitrogen to go into the roughs to push a little energy into them for the summer stress period. Oh what a challenge it will be playing from it over the next few weeks! Hit em straight.

https://youtu.be/pXnd4mWMpLg

VERTICAL IT

Did a little vertical mowing on our greens the last couple of days. Its normally completed a little earlier in the season but timing has not been where I wanted.  You say vertical, what do you mean? Well, allow me a moment to explain. Greens mowers have a piece of metal that stretches across the ground and stands the turf up and the blades then come through and cut it off. We are talking about a setting of about 1/8" maximum which is about 30 sheets of typing paper. Pretty thin. Below are pictures of a normal mowing reel and a vertical mowing reel.

Regular mower with a straight bar across the bottom that stands the blades up and anything above the top of the bar gets cut by the spinning blade.

The vertical mower cuts down into the surface of the green. 37 blades across 20" spaced at about 5/8" apart. Its purpose is to cut any bent grass in its line that have bent over and grown laterally which is its nature.

Our vertical mowing only goes about 3/8" deep helps to manage the bent grass in the manner that I anticipate. We went front to back on Tuesday and today we went the opposite direction and made what appears to be a checker board pattern across the greens to insure we could cut many of the longest blades. Tuesday we did a light sand topdressing behind the vertical mower than brushed and mowed. Today we only brushed behind the vertical cut and mowed. The disruption of the surface lasts a few days but I would anticipate by this weekend the greens should be at their normal roll out.

https://studio.youtube.com/video/eIUkyFNgzjw/edit

  The arrow on the left is pointing to the shorter lime green poa annua.We have reduced its competitiveness with a growth regulator called Paclobutrazol in an effort to encourage the bent grass to out grow it. The arrow on the right/middle is pointing to bent grass plants which if you look at the length of their overall leaves are 3 to 4 times longer than the poa and much wider blades as well. We don't vertical very often because it can reduce the competitive advantage bent grass has over poa but a cut like this can stimulate growth of the bent and force it to push out more leaves from the crown(growth center of the plant). Ultimately it improves ball roll out for future rounds of golf. Now you can go to a depth of an inch or more but that's usually done much earlier in the season to allow for proper healing. Scheduling had not allowed us to get this process completed in the last few weeks but the timing of the cool down over the next few days works perfectly for this cultural practice. 

 

TRIMMING IT

The staff have been hitting the property with trimmers attempting to get all trees, fence lines and other structures trimmed up over the last couple of weeks. They are weekly trimming and hover mowing our bunker banks which is usually a 6-7 hour job for 3-4 people. Once the heat of summer arrives, there is a bit less growth which saves some time. 

FILL IT

Our grounds detail work as we've mentioned in the past are our tennis courts and pool. Continued clean up including painting the asphalt  area and getting the shade structure painted and cleaned. Cleaning  stored away furniture and existing furniture that overwintered at the pool. Becky's been hard at work getting the urns filled and the giant hanging baskets placed at the pool. Touch up painting of the pergola and attaching the sunshade to its roof all in a days work for our staff. 

 We removed some hanging baskets from the Pro Shop front area and have added some new baskets to the Field Bar. Becky planted those last week with Caladium, Sun Patiens, Asprargus Fern and Coleus. Six in total. Should be a good look this season.

 

Please DON'T STEP ON IT

Speaking of Becky and the work she does comes the last but not least of our blog. We have a couple of ornamental plantings that are in some high traffic areas, especially around the pro shop. They were put in place over the years to give a great back drop to our closing hole and to give cart and walking traffic a defined area to walk and or drive around. Last weekend, I happened to be up around the pro shop and saw with my very own eyes people walking directly through the bed area. 

Our walk on and walk off area at the practice green was an embarrassment for me and we have made great strides in improving this area. We improved the soil structure and increased the irrigation to small directed heads for this walk off area. We also placed stakes and roping that can be moved to spread the wear and tear. Every foot print through the ornamental bed compacts the area and does not allow water to penetrate properly and damages plants. We appreciate you walking a few extra feet to protect the work our staff has spent many hours completing.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for your time and hopefully you get out and see  us over the next few days.

2 Tee Renovation and a Great Deal of Other Work to Discuss

March 22nd and 23rd we did the rough in of the new tees on #2. Due to the movement of a great deal of soil and wet conditions every 3-4 days, we are at a pause in work on this project.
I would hope if we can get dry in the next week or so we will get the surrounding area of the tee finished graded and prepared for sod. The teeing ground will be tilled and laser leveled by Schaefer-Meyer we hope within the next couple of weeks and then sodded so that the tee will be open for play by mid-May.

View from the front of the tee complex. Tees are now set up as 2 separate tee boxes.

From behind the tee complex. Sorry for the poor pictures, just looks like a pile of dirt from this level. Had my drone in the air the other day to take pics and crashed into a tree. Once I finish the repair, I will give you an overhead view.

Being the largest group of maintenance folks on staff at Glen Echo, our crew has been assisting in other areas. We spent about 20 man hours power washing the pool wall both inside and out. Also power washed all the walk ways in the front of the building and a part of Pearson Plaza. The staff power washed some of Limestone window sills that we did not get completed last season. The staff  with some able bodied assistance have also been busy inside the pool area removing some over grown shrubbery and pruning others. We we were in the process of mulching the upper wall bed when our loader broke down earlier in the week. Once it is back up, we will finish the mulching of this area. 

We will also be power washing the swimming area of the pool and installing new drain lids and plastering in new frames for the pool system. We will be managing most of the mechanical start up of the pool this season. I attained my pool operator certification for the pool over the winter.

The staff have also been involved in stringing the patio lights and moving equipment to the patio since warm weather is on its way.

Randy power washing the walk way in the front of the clubhouse

This week the staff have been extremely busy with sod work. Over 450 yards of old sod was removed and replaced with both fescue and zoysia. HATS OFF TO THE CREW THIS WEEK!! Our loader was broke down and we had to load the sod into carts and then unload it from the carts.  Normally we place the sod right in the area of work so double work for the guys this week because of the repairs taking place to our loader.

We first completed the tree removal stump repair and root removal on the old tree near 11 green. This was replaced with fescue.

Area to the right of 11 green. A large amount of roots had to be busted out by hand using axes and shovels.

                                                       The finished area off the front right of 11 green.

We then moved to #5 left bunker area. This area has a number of contributing factors to its look. Small area with a great deal of foot and equipment traffic. Last year we tried to resolve some of it with walk mowing the area. Significant shade and drought is the biggest reason for its decline. A large Pin Oak is growing right in the middle of this area and robs it of sunlight and much needed moisture. We stripped the old sod away, trenched in some new irrigation heads that will hit just in this area. We aerated it and put in a couple of yards of leaf compost. The area was then dragged with a metal drag to break of the dirt turds and move some of the compost into the holes. Sod was then added. Should see some improvement we hope with new sod and the other work we completed. We still have some additional areas to sod around the tree and bunker and will complete this hopefully next week.

Tree on the left is a beautiful specimen set back in the proper area on the hole. Tree on the right is being over shaded and basically is growing on one side. Leaves, acorns, and other material fall into the bunker regularly. The shade and moisture depletion is significant.

This is the trench that is about 15' deep and shows the network of tree roots from this tree.

Small 2-3" long turf roots have no chance in a competition for resources with these trees.

Aeration completed so that we can then add compost to improve the soil.

Compost added to the area.

After the area was dragged with a metal drag. Cores busted and some compost moved into holes.

Staff finishing up the sod work. You can still see the weakened turf around the tree. It will be replaced in a few days.

Complete

The staff worked on the 13th approach today and also did a smaller amount of work on the 18th approach. We removed the bent grass sod, repaired part of the collar on 13 and part of the collar on 16. They removed the rest of the material and then laid zoysia in its place. We also had some bermuda contamination and very weak turf in front of 18 approach which was pulled up and replaced.

 

                Bent grass sod being reused on collar on 13.

Finishing the removal. All of this work is being done by hand.

Zoysia sod being laid on 13 approach 

The finished area.

Jason Cutting the old material off of 18 approach.

The look from the left side bunker.

Same area but from below the area.

Finshed area looks great. Still some weakness in front which we will work on improving with aeration, compost and traffic control from our mowing units.