december
Greenmaster’s hot tips for your lawn in December:
- by John Quinn, Master Greenkeeper
Here are December’s lawn care tips from Greenmaster’s Managing Director and Master Greenkeeper John Quinn.
Snow cover damage recovery
Prolonged snow cover can cause a lot of damage to your lawn. Deep snow cover will shut out light from the grass and cause a yellowing effect on the leaves. The blanket of snow will cause the temperature at the turf surface to be a few degrees warmer than the general air temperature. The snow will also prevent any air circulation and the drying effect of the wind reaching the turf surface. Finally the effect of snow melting introduces a lot of moisture that would otherwise not have been around. All of the above conditions combine to make the perfect environment for fungal disease outbreaks which can be devastating at this time of year to lawns that aren’t in the best of shape.
What can we do? Well if you’ve been following my advice for a few months your lawn should be reasonably hardy by now and in a condition that allows it to withstand the worst of the winter onslaught. However, regular slit tining as deeply as you can get the spiker in the ground (and as often as you care to do it as long as the soil isn’t waterlogged or frozen) with the addition of a high Potassium (K) fertiliser application should allow the lawn to drain more readily and strengthen the cells within the plants to allow them to better withstand disease and flooding.
On lawns that are still thatchy and compact it will probably be necessary to use a chemical fungicide as a preventative treatment this year with the intention of getting the lawn into better shape for next winter and hopefully avoiding the need for it again.
Winter projects. Build a putting green!
This one is not for the squeamish, but if you feel comfortable hiring and operating a small excavator and have a reasonable budget to play with, it is possible to undertake a variety of interesting (exciting even!) projects through the winter months. One of these which gets the golfers going is the prospect of their very own putting and/or chipping green.
If you have a big garden and are not surrounded on all sides by greenhouses it is possible to turn out a very presentable green yourself. However, a word of caution before we start….putting greens need a very intensive maintenance regime throughout the year if they are to come any where close to the quality you would expect at a golf club or similar facility.
If you’re still reading then let us begin:
The steps involved in building a green are listed below. If these steps are followed logically the result should be a very acceptable putting green:
- Design and mark out your green
- Calculate budget required for completion of job. If it still sounds good then move to the next stage.
- Locate and mark all underground services, drains etc. If in any doubt about this, then please don’t start excavating any soil until you are absolutely sure. Failure to observe this rule could lead to fairly minor disturbance to your lives through the breakage of a sewer pipe, minor anyway when compared to the consequences of digging through the main power supply! Pleased don’t ever take any chances with this, if in doubt phone the appropriate service providers.
- Remove the surface vegetation. This could include existing turf that you want to re-use in which case you might want to hire a turf cutter. If doing this, you shouldn’t leave the turf rolled up for any length of time. Find a place to roll it back out again where it won’t be trodden or driven on.
- Strip and store topsoil. If you are making a shapely green it is best to remove all of the good brown earth back to the subsoil layer. You will then create all of the shape of your green in the sub soil, bringing in more subsoil if required to achieve the desired shapes etc. When finished we will be re-spreading the topsoil over the entire area.
- Shape subsoil. This is where we will shape the subsoil to give us our desired shapes and contours which will subsequently be brought back to the surface by spreading an even layer of topsoil back over the shaping work. Subsoil shaping might include mounds, hollows or even bunkers.
- Mark out and install drainage. If required this is the point at which we would install the drainage pipes and gravel to allow the green to stay dry and usable during wet weather.
- Re-spread the top-soil. This might involve buying in a new “rootzone material” to replace the original topsoil if it isn’t of very good quality. It is possible to produce a very good putting surface from even low grade topsoil if you don’t mind putting in a bit more work on maintenance. You will have to place and follow depth markers to ensure all your nice shapes, humps and bumps are still visible when finished.
- Consolidate topsoil. This stage will usually require the use of some form of havy machinery to get suitable consolidation.
- Prepare seedbed. This term is used whether using seed or turf and describes the process of producing a fine, blemish free surface on which to place the turf.
- Lay turf and tidy up.
