If you’re about to start autumn renovations and still don’t know what your root zone is made of, don’t guess. You still have time to find out.
By mid-September, it’s easy to think you’ve missed the boat for soil analysis. So the temptation is to press ahead with the usual autumn routine: scarify, hollow tine, seed — and perhaps spread another few tonnes of sandy top dressing because that’s what has always been done.
That could be exactly the wrong thing to do. For many bowling greens, the most important question right now isn’t complicated:
How much sand is already in the rootzone?
We can establish that quickly with the Peak Sand Texture Only Analysis. Using laser diffraction, the laboratory measures the actual percentages of sand, silt and clay in your rootzone and plots the result on the Soil Texture Triangle. A soil test that gives us something far more useful than guesswork. We will instantly know whether your green genuinely needs more mineral material — or whether years of conventional top dressing have already pushed it towards the excessively sandy conditions I call Peak Sand. This information can completely change the autumn renovation programme.
There is still a window
Autumn renovation is one of the year’s biggest opportunities to make meaningful changes below the surface without disrupting play on the green. It’s a time to incorporate materials that improve moisture management, nutrient retention, soil biology, and rootzone resilience. If your rootzone is already 80%, 90% or even more sand, automatically adding another load of sandy top dressing makes little sense.
That’s where the Bowls Central Notdressing approach comes in. Instead of simply filling the holes with more of what you already have, we can use the renovation window to rebuild the characteristics that excessively sandy greens often lack. Once we know your texture, I can help you settle that programme and gather the right materials.
Don’t lose another autumn to guesswork
You don’t necessarily need to wait for a full soil chemistry analysis to make this decision. Right now, texture alone can tell us an enormous amount.
So if you’ve been thinking:
“It’s probably too late for soil analysis this year…”
Don’t use that as a reason to repeat last year’s renovation programme by default.
There is still time to:
- Get the sample away.
- Find out what your green is actually made of.
- Settle the renovation programme.
- Get the materials organised.
- Then make this autumn count.
