As frost and cold weather has finally hit, we are now into that winter season where we concentrate more on projects than of keeping the grass cut. Not to say we are still doing a little of cutting grass here in the transition zone. When we do have some decent weather, we still try to maintain a semblance of maintaining the golf course for play, because we can see a decent amount of play even in the winter.
Luckily for us, any large tree work, removing or pruning which occurs with our larger trees, we benefit with our employer have a full time tree crew. They will when requested come out and do plenty of work on trees that we just don't have the staff or equipment to handle.
What we tend to concentrate on is pruning hanging branches and taking care of our smaller newer trees. Back in 2007 we had the fortunate or unfortunate (all depends on one's perspective) problem of losing about 200 trees on our golf course to one of the worst ice storms in our area since our course was built in the early 1960's. During this ice storm we lost about 200 trees on an 100 acre golf course. Unfortunately this was before smart phones and what pictures I have of that time I've still not put into a digital format. Over the 2014 and 15 seasons we did replace about a 180 trees. Fortunately we were able to do a better job of placing them then the previous placements over the years before I arrived. Many of the lost trees were large elms, arranged in straight rows. We planted a wider variety of trees from hardwoods to evergreens. When placing these new trees we were looking more at placing them for safety reasons than as hazards. We were also able to watch for creating shade issues for the turf. In the mid 2000's we changed fairways and tees from a cool season turf to warm season Bermuda. We did learn to avoid the straight lines of old and grouped them a little more, I felt staggered groups would offer better protection and a little more visual interests once they mature. Again with the large amount of trees to be planted we were grateful for the tree crew. I marked the locations with the type of trees that had been selected for us, hoping I have found the right locations for the many different varieties.
We have managed a good survival rate or dare I say great, through some effort and luck. I've always heard a good survival rate in mass plantings are above 50 % on up to about 70%. We achieved so far about 90%, like I mentioned, due to luck, and some tools like water drip bags, and also hauling an old spray tank around. And I'm sure aided by irrigation as well.
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Now onto our recent tree projects. We have never really concentrated on cleaning up around our evergreens, just trying to weedeat the best we could. Partly because of staffing and also because I was always concerned that by removing the lower limbs, they wouldn't offer golfer protection as well. As I felt their locations afforded protection from errant shots on neighboring fairways. Finally after seeing them look trashy with not only grasses but other plants growing in and among them like mulberry bushes, we decided to address them.
Above you can see some of the plant materials we were finding under some of our pine trees. We originally started with removing limbs about knee high, when we didn't feel we had removed enough material, we went up to waste high. The pictures below show a before and after shot from the same location. This allowed us to achieve the goals we had set for this project.
The goals we had set out to accomplish were the following:
We wanted to clean up the areas under these trees just so we could provide a better look on the golf course.
We wanted to make it easier to maintain the areas under these trees. We can actually get mower decks under them.
We wanted the trees to still provide for some protection from errant shots on neighboring holes.
We wanted to provide for a little more air circulation then prior.
And finally, we wanted anyone behind those trees to be able to have an opportunity to possible play a shot, or at least advance the ball.
The last goal is something of an opinion that I have developed over time from my first impression of trees on the golf course, as I grew up playing the game, to one that I have now . Some of that growth comes from the knowledge of how trees can be a detriment to the growing of good turf. Part of the opinion comes from my knowledge of fairness and enjoyment of playing golf from my earliest days until now. Something that I will explore later in another post. Hopefully that post will bring some discussions about how we look at playing the game. Part of my reason for starting this blog, to explore the game as a game and as a business.
As always,
Thanks for reading!
Mel
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