On the greens we have sprayed a fungicide to control and prevent disease which is active at this time of year under these damp warm days, if not treated the scares will persist through the winter months so making control essential work. A follow under spray will take place in October to continue our preventative programme. After cutting the enviro-rough coarse weed s like thistles were becoming invasive  which although a good food source for some small birds  if allowed to dominant would inhibit golf ball retrieval, so a selective weed control has been applied.

We have scarified the fairways to open the surface and remove the thatch and then a soluble fertiliser will be applied to feed and harden up the sward for the winter months, a slit tining programme will take place at regular intervals as the weather allows. This has already taken place on the greens.

 Craig scarifying the fairways

slit-tining greens

 

We had burst hydraulic pipe on the 5th vixen fairway while it was being mown, this left some oil burn lines, which will grow out, the pipe was quickly removed and replace with little down time

We are working  on finding and repairing the leak on our irrigation system near the 1st tee heron. and restoring the area back to normal

There are two public footpaths which cross the golf course allowing the general public to walk  through. I recently saw a group of ramblers using one of these paths on the 3rd hawk.

September is a good month to forage and this year has been particularly good for apples of which there are many trees and varieties on the course as well as blackberries. The greenstaff have already had jam and pies from them.

6th vixen

3rd hawk

I recently attended a seminar along with with other staff from across the country at Thorpness golf club in Suffolk who were the 2012 overall winners in the STRI Environmental awards to see and discuss the work they have been doing in this area while maintaining there course

Thorpness discussing the heather management with Bob Taylor STRI ecologist

 

I recently took the photo below on the 6th hawk of a common female Darter dragonfly, we have a variety of species if you look around

As I have been on my summer holidays the blog has not been updated for a few weeks  but course maintenance has continued.The greens were scarified in two directions to remove thatch and then topdressed to restore surface levels but due to hydraulic pipe failure on the machine the vixen greens were completed a week later.The height of cut has been reduced to 4mm to help achieve smoothness.We will be aerating the greens regularly with solidtining  at various depths as well as slit tining  as we start our autumn programme.
We will be digging out and repairing a leak on the irrigation system pipework  as the need to irrigate the greens diminishes.
We were subjected to a 2nd theft on our diesel fuel tank in only a few months,so we had to get a container, kindly given to us by Stapleford Abbotts (thanks Paul) replace the locks and fuel  and hope this deters the person or persons unknown from further interest.
Today Wednesday 11 September we had our Environment Awards assessment for 2013 as again we reached the final stages of the competition, part of our work has been the development of our wildflower areas,these do require management by annually cutting and collecting the growth to remove the nutrients and organic matter

 

 

 Craig and Luke work on the 8th Hawk

Damage on the 8th Green Heron when a stone was caught in the greens mower scrapping the  green on the first line of cut,topdressed with sand to heal the damage.

We will be working to extend the width of the 3rd tee on the heron course  and keep it in play all year so that we will not have to use the very small winter tee

The early morning light showed up the  flowering display of one of our recent autumn  plant beds in front of the clubhouse.Providing late season nectar for bees

 

finally on this blog we would appreciate it if you could locate the Pot of Gold somewhere on the Vixen and return it to us