Hot Mulch!

We had mulch blown into our flower beds this past Monday evening.  Usually we do the mulch first and then add flowers but with the weather our contractor was backed up and could only come Monday.  Mulch is usually very hot to begin with and on top of that sitting in the truck for a few hours when they applied it, the heat stunted all the annuals and actually scorched the bed edges.  The annuals while ugly will recover and already are pushing new flowers out and the grass will green up as well but goes to show you how something so basic can become a headache.

Just A Reminder

A reminder about our bentgrass conversion program on fairways.  Here you see the yellowing from a recent growth regulator application (Trimmit) that stunts the poa for about 3 weeks.  Once the poa is stunted we put out some nitrogen applications to encourage the bentgrass to really push growth.  Throw in the mix we allow annual bluegrass weevils to eat the poa to some extent and we have a great ability to lessen our poa populations.  Remember we also allowed the fairways to seed out which weakens the poa even more.  Notice here on the 12th fairway (our weakest fairway) how much bentgrass we have.  The bentgrass populations have more than doubled since we started this program and removed a bunch of trees to allow more sunlight.

Lawn Area Nearing Completion

The bulk of the heavy lifting is done.  The black tee above the rock wall is done but we cannot finish our tie ins until the stair case is installed.  A few smaller rocks are needed on the wall to tie into the steps as well.   Some minor sodding is left to do along with 2 sets of blue stone staircases which will require a lot of plywood and careful work not to disturb all the finished work.
The good news is the sod was laid on Thursday and the area has been mowed twice already and topdressed and sprayed.