This years winter work schedule is well under way. One of the first tasks we did this year was to dig out all the green and tee irrigation control valve boxes.
The main reason being is that these boxes contain shutdown valves, decoders, and other parts essential to maintaining the irrigation system. Over the years they become contaminated by tree roots and burrowing animals.

Bunker renovation is also well under way, we have installed new soakaways to problem bunkers as well as edging, destoning and replenishing with new sand.....

We have also been installing new paths (8th tee,above). 

At present we are about 50% through our winter programme. Most of the bunker work is completed and we only have a couple more paths to re-build.

In the new year we hope to get cracking with some gorse planting and tree moving!!

We have recently completed the bunker renovations on the 4th,including the addition of a strip of heather between the two approach bunkers (above). Heather shouldn't naturally grow on this site (because of the high pH of our soil), so we have added ericasious compost in this area to help the heather to grow. Should this prove successful we could see more heather on other parts of the course.

We have also been digging soakaways into many of the greenside bunkers that drained poorly over the winter. The above is the soakaway in the front bunker on the 2nd green. The soakaways are dug to a depth of approx 2 metres, back-filled with 70mm shingle, covered with astroturf (to stop the stone contaminating the sand) and then topped up with sand.

                  hollow coring
                  overseeding

applying granular fertiliser

This week we have been making the most of the better weather to get some spring renovation work on the tees. We have hollow cored, overseeded and applied a granular fertiliser.

scarifying fairways

Also whilst it's been dry, we have started to scarify some of the fairways. Last year, was a very good year for moss, and some fairways have been badly infested. So, we scarify it out! Its quite a laborious task (normally we would use this machine on greens) but well worth the effort. Later in march we will be applyng a fertiliser with soluble iron mixed with it to the fairways. This will scorch or blacken the moss which makes removing it easier...

 

 

Welcome to the Caversham Heath GC Greenstaffs blog.

 

We will be using this blogsite to keep members and visitors updated with what is going on the course....

 

Recently we have been renovating many of the bunkers that have not been draining properly. This involves reomoving the old contaminated sand, digging in new soakaways and then lining the bunkers with 3g astroturf before installing new sand.

We then re-turf around the edges of the bunker.

 

The righthand greenside bunker on the 10th has been recently completed but it may take a couple of weeks before we bring the bunker back into play to allow the new turf to take root.

 

 

 

The right hand greenside bunker on the 7th is also finished....

 

 

 

 

The next bunkers undergoing renovation are the 4th approach and greenside right bunkers.