Annual Meadow Grass takes over worn heads (photo by S Kennerley)
The rink heads on the bowling green are subject to higher levels of wear and tear than any other playable part of the green.
The concentration of foot traffic on these areas causes severe compaction of the soil resulting in poor growth characteristics and in many cases invasion by annual meadow grass. Due to the shallow rooting of this grass the heads can quickly become skinned and badly worn with little grass cover. I’ve uploaded a new Worn Heads Factsheet to the Mastermind Network area detailing what you can do to minimise and prevent wear and how to properly renovate heads so that they don’t keep wearing out.
Those of you who are working through my Bowling Club Survival and Turnaround eBook will know that I am a stickler for working to a plan and within that “ALWAYS” working on the top 3 issues that will move us closer to our goals.
Some readers have had a bit of difficulty getting traction with their turnaround plans through one problem or another; almost exclusively linked to apathy or inertia within the club or committee, a reluctance to get moving on big change.
For those of you in this category, who feel like they are trying to push water uphill, here is a little system you can use to organise your thoughts and maybe encourage those around you to engage with the plan a little more readily. Its really just about asking 4 simple questions:
What went well last year?
You can easily apply this question to your club situation and come up with
Last year John Woodcock, MP for Barrow-in-Furness has raised a Bill in Parliament to try to prevent bowling greens from being too easily sold off to developers.
The current planning laws say that amenity areas like bowling greens should not be zoned for building development if they are being used by a significantly sized group of people.
However, John Woodcock’s Bill aims to provide the facility to tighten these laws to make sure that all reasonable steps are taken to preserve the green; only allowing sale to developers as a last resort. This would include provision to offer greens to user groups first at market rates.
In a radio discussion about the bill there was also an interview with Read more
Following on from Syd Kennerley’s recent article describing how he converted an old mower into a spiker and Doug Smith’s earlier article about adapting his mower to include a spiker; Eric Barklem from Halton Castle Bowling Club in Westhead near Ormskirk has been inspired to follow Doug’s example and has added a spiker attachment to his Atco mower.
Eric’s machine is a bit different from Doug’s as it uses a cylinder mower where as Doug has adapted a rotary mower.
I asked Eric how he approached the project and he Read more
Thanks to everyone who downloaded the free winter maintenance report at the start of the winter.
Now here we are approaching the Christmas holidays and I don’t think many of you will have been able to implement much of the work that I recommend both in the Winter Maintenance Guide and in Performance Bowling Greens, a practical guide.
This is of course due to it being too wintry!
Well the good news is that if you made even a start to the recommended autumn/ winter compaction relief work by getting one or maybe two passes made with the deep slit tiner, then the frost will be doing a lot of good by getting into the soil and heaving it into fissures in the compacted zone.
However, the bad news is two-fold:
it is going to prove difficult to do any work on greens throughout most of the UK this winter due to excessive frost and snow cover on greens; The winter program is essential and if your particular corner of the nation is free of frost and snow you should bash on with the winter work as much as you possibly can.
The worst effect of this excessive cold weather is that the soil temperature is being forced down to levels that we don’t usually have to put up with very often.
This second point is very important and will become increasingly so in the months and years to come.
What’s the problem?
Well, my old Mum has a saying: “We’ve never died a winter yet”, which of course means that we are resilient and can adapt our approach to life to cope with whatever it throws at us.
Is it time to apply this thinking to our bowling greens; do they need further protection from the winter than we currently afford them?
Although I am not advocating a panic buying type situation I do think it is time for us to look at Read more
