Today we're going to just try to show you just some of the basic maintenance processes that
we carry out on this bowling green, and on others. We will show the process of
over seeding, and then a top dressing program and a matting in, and that's what's going to happen today.
Just want to talk through this is our seeder, it's called a BLEC Multi-seeder. It covers a large
area of ground. You can see these, every rotation, every rotation creates little seed beds, seed pots
with these spikes which gives the seed down a better chance of getting into the little uh
holes for better germination. You can see this is the area that the seed goes into,
and then it just falls through the back and gets brushed in.
We would normally put one bag on per green of the fescue and bent mix.
and that's adequate. This is a very accurate machine. We'll do it both ways , we'll do, we'll do it
up and down and then we'll do it diagonally across just to make sure we get all the seed used and all
areas covered on the green so there's absolutely none missed. You can see .... we would like to talk a little
bit about moss. we have uh several areas on this bowling green that has moss. Moss has come to uh
on this green because it's a lot of shaded area that you can see the hedges are a little bit
too high for here, and the sun gets up on this side and on the right hand side of this green
we don't get moss, but on that side we're shaded we do get moss. More damper. that's just a facility for
moss. Moss just loves damp shaded areas. but this year we're going to work extensively on trying to
eradicate it through scarifying, verti cutting through the season, still adding additional sulphate of
iron through the season to kill it off and try to remove it, And that's our programme on moss control
You can see this is a what they call a "swoosh cane", and this guy here has just been putting in any excess,
excess seed that is lying on the top , and just rodding it in, You can use this for taking off the
dew off the grass in the early mornings as well as just removing any debris off the greens as well.
We're just trying out the process of top dressing. I would use we're actually
at the moment thinking around about two ton to three ton on the surfaces, not too much at this
time of the year because this bowling green, their first opening date is the 26th of March.
so we don't want too much sand on the green to be abrasive to the bowl. Again we use this high
quality sand which is HS Masters sand, which is very clean and it's very uniform sand.
We're just talking regarding some of the excess sand that we're going on here - we're
just, we don't want to put on too much. We don't want to leave it on the surface too
much, so we're just discussing how much sand that's required after it's top dressed in.
You know, and I'm suggesting just that we'll put it on the half of it and then we'll disperse it
and then if it needs another top up we'll put it on and then disperse it in again as well.
This is a drag mat. This is pulled across the surface,
it pulls the sand and and seed into the little holes there, it's pulled by one of the machines
because it's quite heavy this drag mat but it's this has been
something that would be used by all groundsmen to just pull in any excess sand sand and seed
into any worn areas across the green. This will be used across the green maybe twice or three times.
It can be a little bit abrasive because it's metal. You can get rubber drag mats
which would be less abrasive, and then a brush system as well.
So there'll be several items that you can use to mat in your sand and seed onto the green.
On bowling greens each corner normally gets a little bit extra wear and tear.
I'm sure all bowling green groundsmen has the same problems, some wear and tear in all the corners.
The corners do get a lot of work, with with us trying to maneuver lawnmowers or hand cutting
lawn mowers around them and any other things that create wear and tear. We're using this fleece today
to try to speed up the germination. The fleece itself will allow water through , air through,
but also create like a greenhouse effect, heighten the temperature in the soil,
help the germination, so we'll just pin it all down I'll do the four corners and then we'll
leave that for maybe a fortnight three weeks and then lift it, and hopefully the the seed underneath
will be well germinated by then. If it needs to be lifted before that we'll just keep an eye on it,
but you can see I'm standing on a very dark shaded corner this will help the germination in this
corner to try to get some seed established, to try to get more uniformity of sword across the green.