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.