June 12, 2022
I apologize for not keeping up with our blog page. I missed a week of work due to Covid and it set me back a little.
Hard to believe we are almost at a half way point in June. It has been a very busy time for us in the golf course maintenance department. It is all of the behind the scenes things that we do that are never noticed or appreciated unless you don't do them. I am talking about things like treating the entire rough, tees and fairways areas for white grub control, treating 150 ash trees for Emerald Ash Borer, treating 45 Linden trees for Japanese Beetle control, treating all of the roughs and fairways for crabgrass and goose grass control and lastly treating the arborvitae hedges for bag worms. The golfer might see the treatment going on while they are out here in the normal course of a day but many do not realize what is taking place. If we didn't do a lot of these annual treatments we would have major weed infestations or we might see major turf damage from insects or other pests.
June is also a neat time to see the cool season grasses start to show off their seed heads. I am talking about some of the no mow areas and what they look like now. Depending on where you are looking you might see different fescues, bluegrass and some warm season grasses developing into their full maturity. Here are some examples:
This is #8 North, it is a combination of some fescue grasses.
One of my favorites is the no mow area on #9 South. Again a different blend of fescue grasses making quite a show of their seed heads.
This area is between the #1's of both golf courses, while it does not look like much right now it is because a warm season grass. These grasses develop much later in the year and will put on quite a show come late August or September. Stay tuned this is beautiful in the fall.
We are into all of our programming and mowing on the golf courses. Our staff often hears me say that nothing is tougher to do than spring projects because you are so busy on the golf courses that you don't really have time for projects. However, there are always spring projects to do and we try to fit them in as best we can. This week we replaced an area of concrete along the clock green. The construction traffic from the last year broke up the concrete. We had it all removed and poured back in the same day. 4 concrete trucks of concrete and it is done.
We are almost ready for sod on a rather big project. The area around the new fire pits has a lot of new irrigation pipes and heads installed and almost ready for use. We have about 1 1/2 days left to do some more irrigation install and some grading, then it will all be ready for sodding. Here is a look at that area this morning, almost done!
It has been a very good spring with timely rains. We really have not operated any irrigation to date. Normally we would have been using the irrigation system and well water. I feel very fortunate that we have not needed to use the saline water from our well. We have not seen the localized dry spots or the wilt that is associated with using the bad water. Unfortunately we are going to have to use it very soon. The upcoming week looks like a week of very high temperatures and no rain in sight. You can expect to see some sprinklers in operation, along with that will be the use of our well.
Always if you have questions or comments please let us know, we are happy to answer them always.