On to May, Happy 125th
Two days out from the 125th Anniversary Gala here is your 302nd blog post in Hermitage history. This property continues to get better every day. Not many clubs can say they have been associated for more than 125 years, we are all lucky to be a part of it!
We do have some unlucky bermudagrass that has struggled this spring from a tough winter. Almost everywhere that has not greened up yet is in the shade. Some areas are wet all winter and some are dry but shade continues to be the common dominator. Most spots will continue to green up but we will start laying some sod down next week in the worse areas. We budget for a tough winter so tossing a few trucks of sod out to replace weak bermuda is certainly not out of the ordinary.
The fly mowers and rough mowers made their first appearance in 6 months after a long winter. We have been running irrigation into the warmer dry weather to try and keep the bermuda moving. Both courses will change quickly over the next month as soil temperatures maintain in the upper 70's and higher.
The Sabot greens are filling in nicely from their aeration two weeks ago. You can see where some collars thinned here and there from our non selective herbicide application back in February. We can't get any more aggressive with these herbicides yet the poa still persists in areas, especially in the rough. The toughest agronomic challenge we face is keeping the bermuda weed free for 6 months while its growth rate stays stagnant. As the bermuda wakes up the poa mows out and we are off and running for the actual growing season.
It was hard to miss the pond dredging action on 16 Manakin this week. Our team set up the slop corral and staged our excavator for what was to come. Over the years this pond has filled with silt and leaves, making it easy for algae to form and overall not provide a healthy water feature. We knew when we saw the blue heron fishing in the middle of the pond and he was only knee deep it was time for some dredging.
A local contractor was brought in with their dredging contraption, basically an excavator on a river boat. Our best and really only option was to have him take a scoop off the bottom and then place it over in the native area to the left. Transporting this material off site would of been way too costly and a flat out mess. We will continue into next week cleaning the pond out until we feel the native area can't take any more material. Hopefully the slop will dry out a bit and we will sod and/or seed it over. This is definitely a messy process but the spring temperatures will help us button it up a lot faster than if this was done in the winter time.
Some cooler weather will be around this weekend but then next week it looks like some good bermuda weather, for May anyway!