Monday, August 29, 2016

What's happening around CCN

Lots of sprinkler leveling happening

Lots of landscaping trimming happening. All ficus hedges were trimmed and cleaned up. 

Lots of local "recips" happening

Lots of new green's perimeter grow-in happening

Lots of fertilizing happening

Lots of raining happening....like every day happening 

Lots of new bathroom construction happening

Lots of new teeing grounds happening
Lots of new range tee grow-in happening
Lots of preparing to sit down happening

Lots of drain basin leveling happening

A lot of getting ready to start installing rail road tie curbing

Lots of new Solana Road landscaping by RP happened 

Lots of beautiful new Clubhouse construction has been happening 

Lots of prepping for our annual cart path refurbishment happening. Line them out, spray them out, edge, then cap them all. 

Lots of new grasses happened....2000 of them

Lots of equipment repairs happening too

It's been a pretty wild summer so far with all the improvements and hurtles to overcome, like weather. And by the looks of the tropical depression in the Atlantic it might get to be a really crazy place here soon. Guess we have to wait and see what happens. 






Monday, August 8, 2016

Finally, a bright sun shiny day....oh wait, spoke too soon

This blog post was over a two day period. My how things change fast.

Sat afternoon.....

Ever since the first aerification in June it's been raining a lot. So much so that it's been difficult to do most remedial things like mowing some times. Here is a list of rain events since June. 

As you can see the rain has been pretty consistent. Due to the constant rain threat I've been hesitant to fertilize the course in fear of it being washed down the drains. The result has been a slowly  recovering turf. 

Thankfully this last week the rain subsided a bit and my team was able to get the course fertilized to promote growth. Due to the rain being so relentless this summer the grass is still a little thin, so I am going to modify the third aerification series a bit so it's not so aggressive. It is better to have more grass this time of year than not enough. 

This aerification session my team will just punch holes and sand most things, plug bare areas in the new green's perimeters, sod some areas where the insects have destroyed the grass, continue raising sprinkler heads and drains, and general maintenance stuff.  There will be no wall to wall heavy verti-cutting. 

So it was a beautiful weekend, Sunny, hot, and then Sunday evening rolls in.

Monday morning.....

Over night the course received constant rain for hours totalling 1.25" in all. Thankfully the rain stopped around 3 a.m. and the course drained a bit as today I am having the course injected with a chemical called Curfew to kill soil living pests. Wouldn't you know it though, it rained again right before the Curfew guys started. Thankfully it was just a quick blast and not substaintial. 

The Curfew material is custom injected by an outside company. It is sliced into the ground six inches deep as a high pressure gas that vaporizes and diffuses up through the soil killing all insects and pests except ants. For some reason ants are immune. The super high soil moisture content of the course actually helps in this case. Since there is no tarping to hold the gas in place, irrigation is needed afterwards to retard the volitity of the gas. Due to all the rain, my staff will not have to irrigate as much after the application. The reason the course is closed for 3 days is because of the re-entry restrictions. Any treated areas cannot be entered until 24 hours after application. So all day today and most of tomorrow my staff will be working in the landscaping and other areas of the course. Wednesday my staff will be out repairing any sod damage and putting the course back together for play on Thursday. 








Monday, August 1, 2016

A message from my friends at the UF extension office.......





When  designing a privacy hedge, its a good idea to use multiple species of shrubs. The ficus whitefly destruction was an example of what can happen when we have a monoculture (one plant species in a hedge). I now see a replacement monoculture of Clusia (pitch apple) and hopefully we won't have a new Clusia insect or disease which will wipe out these new hedges. For lonterm sustainablilty, think of hedges composed of multiple-species to avoid pest ruination (an IPM tactic)!
See native plant selection ideas in our new video filmed at the Naples Botanical Garden with Chad Washburn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndY8KK7cXbI


Sweetpotato whitefly (Photo by Jeffrey W. Lotz, FDACS)- be on the lookout for the new Q strain, especially on hibiscus, lantana and crossandra. This one can be a major problem on 100's of species of vegetables and ornamentals. See info here:


Oleander caterpillar numbers seem to be on the increase  compared to the last few years. If you see these beautiful, wasp-like moths (above), look for the clusters of eggs (above) they are depositing and clip the leaves off! Repeating generations of caterpillars can wreck the appearance of an oleander hedge! The caterpillars (below) are a day-glow orange with soft black hairs. See more at:
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/IN/IN13500.pdf 






Doug Caldwell, Ph.D.
AKA DR. DOUGBUG


Doug is the Commercial Landscape Horticulture Extension Educator and landscape entomologist with the University of Florida.

The Extension Service is an off-campus branch of the University of Florida, Institute of the Food and Agricultural Sciences [IFAS] and a department of the Public Services Division of Collier County government.






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University of Florida | Collier County Extension
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The Cooperative Extension Service is an off-campus branch of the University of Florida, Institute of the Food and Agricultural Sciences and a department of the Public Services Division of Collier County government. Extension programs are open to all persons without regard to race, color, creed, sex, handicap or national origin. For updates on the southwest Florida horticulture visit Doug's website:
http://collier.ifas.ufl.edu/CommHort/HomeCommHort.shtml

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