A lot of the web searches that lead people to this site are based around a desire to find a catch all, fool proof, guaranteed to work, easy to implement Bowls Green Maintenance Schedule.
Quite a lot of people actually search using the term: “Cheat Sheet for Bowling Green Maintenance”, and although the assumption would be that this is going to be impossible to find, it’s actually more credible a desire than you might imagine.
Perceived wisdom in the greenkeeping world would insist that the answer to this quest should begin with the phrase “well every green is different, so there is no such thing as a one stop shop for bowling green improvement”. Does that sound like a salesman speaking to you? Yes? Well that’s because it usually is!
However, this isn’t necessarily true.
The fact is that a very large percentage of the people who use this site, or who I meet or talk to about bowling greens, express almost identical problems with their greens and the reason for that is two-fold:
- There are actually very few things that can go wrong with greens; the majority of “problems” merely arise as symptoms of one or two basic underlying issues, which in turn, are related to bad maintenance practices.
- Almost every sub-standard or un-predictable bowling green surface is a result of clubs following the “industry standard” of greenkeeping which is dangerously flawed.
So what is the big answer?
Well, although it is really quite simple, relying on just a few components; namely soil profile management in terms of texture and structure, providing for correct soil/plant nutrition and following a plan that results in an increasingly healthy and natural soil/plant relationship, it does rely on a bit of understanding about where you are starting from.
My eBook explains a process that allows for creating a base level program for your green which will see some immediate improvements. It then moves on to describe the renovation process which will help you overcome some of the more deep seated problems implanted through decades of inappropriate maintenance. Finally, the program moves onto the low input maintenance that will see your green continue to improve over the following years and tweaks that you can use on a healthy, living green to keep improving and achieving incrementally higher levels of performance…
…and of course there are some example maintenance schedules in there for reference…but not blind adherence to. Why?
Well you will find that as you go through the program and become more confident in what you are doing (due to results), you will develop a deeper understanding of what’s going on with your green and will be able to make tweaks and alterations depending on previous results and current performance.
The key word within all of this is “consistency”, so it’s important that you don’t lose your nerve in the face of the mainstream “wisdom”. Just remember that it’s a one way street and it’s you who is going in the right direction.
For your efforts you will have a continually improving green, which will become increasingly easy to set up for high performance and which will throw up a decreasing number of problems. Finally, you will be saving a considerable amount of cash over what has become the “norm”.