Manakin aeration complete, bermuda starting to wake up!

 

After some treacherous wind last weekend, the sun and heat showed up this week to get spring moving. Manakin aeration went smoothly, just pulling 1/4" cores out of the greens just like the Sabot two weeks ago.

The cores are easily blown off the green with little damage to the turf. The idea of being able to limit abrasion during this aeration process goes a long way in being able to recover with little to no extra fertilizer input. Limiting inputs helps reduce our organic matter and keep things firm and healthy.

Our amendments were all spread out in front of the topdressing and then brushed in.

The Sabot greens have healed up nicely after two weeks from their aeration. The back nine is down to .170" height of cut and moved over to out aggressive fixed head mower. We will probably open them up at .150" on April 18th while all the other greens are at .130". 

We continue to tweak the new pinsheet system, especially along the edges. We wanted to start with having pins available within 6-7 feet of the edge in order to spread the wear more and take advantage of more surface of our smaller greens. Unfortunately the program is using those tighter spots more frequently than desired so we have disabled most of the hole locations for the future.

While Manakin was aerating the Sabot team started to tackle our last piece of the back patio construction. We took down the privacy fence and stripped up any remaining old fescue turf. Ben regraded the back lawn to fit the new stone work and then tie back into the existing cartpath.

New irrigation was piped in and wired to the new Sabot two wire system. Tahoma bermudagrass was laid down Thursday.

We should be able to mow this Tahoma pretty tight to match up with the Manakin fairways or at least the rough.

We went deep into the plant encyclopedia to find some color for the spring opening that the deer wouldn't destroy. Ranunculus, snap dragons, and marigolds round out the annuals while euphorbia and salvia leucantha will fill in nicely around some pinus specimens as perennials through the season.

The bermuda has come a long way in just a weeks time. Low, wet and shaded spots have a long way to go but we are out chopping down some areas already. The heat will return next week and with no severe frosts in the forecast we should be in pretty good shape for the Sabot re-opening on April 18th!