Pushing rope up hill

With the daily afternoon down pours, trying to get things done around the course has been like trying to push rope uphill. When it looks like we need to go right, things go left and bunch up!

Despite the daily rain event, my team has continued to make small daily progress. The new par 3 tees are open, the range tee is back open (when not to soggy), the new green's perimeters are filling in nicely, and we began some new projects. 

Railroad tie curbing install has started. My team began installing 3 green today....but got ran off by rain. We have a full docket of new curbs to install this year: 3 green, 6 silver tee, 11 green, 12 tees, 13 green and 16 green. It's an ambitious goal!!!!

Our annual cart path "cut back" is getting ready to take place. To prepare for the trimming we sprayed the edges of the cart paths with a herbicide to kill the grass. This way when the grass is removed the roots will not take a large chunk of cart path material with it. 

My team has also just finished laying out 6500 square feet of sod on some thin spots in the fairways.  These areas are the ones that we are constantly struggling with in season. Experience has taught me that most of the time if you just cut out the struggling grass and sod it the issues go away. Most of the sod is on 5 fairway but there are spots here and there. 

The weather forecast is to be rainy all week. There's a short window of opportunity left before everyone returns and a whole lot to get done still. If we could just catch a break from the weather we could make up some needed ground. 

Clubhouse tree removal

Over the last several days I had a tree company in to remove the large Mahogany trees lining Burning Tree Drive.  The reason for removal is because the large Mahogany seedpods would fall and crack windshields or worse, dent cars.  Additionally the trees were very messy,  dropping tremendous amount of leaves into convertible's interior and car windshield wiper hood gaps. 

New Oak trees will be installed to replace the removed trees. 

I also had the very large Royal Palm behind the Clubhouse that was adjacent to the putting green removed. The palm was so large that I couldn't trim it any more which left it to drop things all over the green, and it didn't fit into the new landscape plan for the back of the Clubhouse. 

The plan is to accentuate the enormous Black Olive tree. All the shrubs and electrical stuff under the tree will be removed, new up lighting will be installed under the Black Olive to light it at night, and beautiful seasonal flowers will be installed to make the tree a signature spot.  It's all in various stages of chaos, but I needed to get the trees removed now before the major palm tree trimming season starts at the end of the month and the vast majority of tree trimmers are busy. 

How my day usually goes

My father is one of those guys who has a saying for everything. He would of characterized yesterday's rain storm as a "frog strangler!" Although the recent tropical storm had long past, you would of thought is miraculously reappeared here and unleashed it's fury and then left as fast as it showed up, dumping 1.2 inches of rain in 30 minutes. 

Mr. Benson in Moorings Park sent me this picture looking out the window of his unit on the top floor right after the storm passed. The view is looking north down hole 7 and all the flooded drain basins are a good indication of the intensity of the rain.....course closed, see everyone tomorrow. 

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. 

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. 

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: http://collier.ifas.ufl.edu/commhort/CommHortPubs/Scouting%20for%20the%20Q%20Whitefly.pdf    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.

Copyright © 2016 University of Florida | Collier County Extension, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you are a landscape professional or a homeowner who has shown an interest in beautifying your landscape and protecting the environment. Our mailing address is: University of Florida | Collier County Extension 14700 Immokalee Road Naples, Florida 34120 Add us to your address book unsubscribe                 update preferences forward to a friend         add me to this list! 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 Fertilize Your Palms Regularly

tee renovation update and other news

The tee renovations are all complete and the sprigs are growing.  Growing so much so that we are already mowing the newly planted grass.  To ensure that the tees are level when they open for play and not all clumpy like they are now, a lot has to be done.  The basic principle pretty simple, take the top down and bring the bottom up at the same time...along with some verti-cutting and other things.  As the cut is lowered it will purposefully scalp off the mounds of grass, and sanding every week will fill the voids giving a smooth surface for the grass to grow on.

Fresh planted 

Little over a wk old

The purpose of the tee renovations was to increase the available teeing ground to accommodate the golfing demands of the club.  In 2009 when the course was redesigned we were only playing 25,000 rounds of golf so the smaller tee sizes worked.  Now that the club is full, or nearly full, we are playing over 30,000 (probably closer to 35,000) rounds and the smaller tees were not able to spread out the wear enough.  What was left behind essentially was perpetual divot during the winter months, not much different than the range tee.  Too much use and not enough area to spread it out. 

To solve the problem I consulted with the golf course architect, Gordon Lewis, about making some adjustments and we came up with the current shape and size of the renovated tees.  These very large teeing grounds should give ample room to spread wear out and provide sufficient time for the grass to recover during the winter golfing season.  Remember, these are par 3 tees and most people are taking large divots which require time to heal.

Although the vast majority of the changes to the new teeing grounds are completed, there are a few items left to do to wrap up the projects.  The new teeing ground on 6 still needs to have some landscape grasses added at the bottom of the new tee slopes to tie into the existing landscaping.  On hole 12, I will be adding a few trees between 11 fairway and 12 tee.  Not many as I don't want to create a shade issue again, but some to give just the slightest hint of separation between holes. 

The range tee is healing in quickly and should produce a fantastic hitting surface.  The tee is basically in a grow-in mode. There's lots of new growth filling in. 

Day after leveling

Today

In other news, it has been raining constantly! The constant rain has played havoc on my plans to complete some of the items that would normally be done during the closure week - like sanding fairways.  The ground is so saturated that it is becoming difficult to even mow, let alone drag a loaded sand trailer around.   The only good thing about all the rain is that it is showing us where we need to do a drainage project, or two, or six.  This next intermission between aerifications will be concentrated on landscape trimming and leveling of sprinklers and drains.  Fortunately none of that work requires machinery so the soggy ground should not be an issue.