Year-round maintenance of your Bowling Green.  Full or part renovation of your Green undertaken by highly experienced operatives

The lifetime makeover service for turf!  Turfgear offer year-round Bowling Green Maintenance to assist you with the preparation and on-going maintenance of the playing surface. Operations we can carry out include: 

• Scarification
• Solid Tining
• Hollow Coring
• Micro Tining and Coring
• Verti-Draining
• Top Dressing
• Drag Matting and Brushing
• Fertiliser Application
• Grass Seed Application

We generally specialise in using the very best pedestrian machinery available as many Greens do not have sufficient access for tractor mounted equipment. Anyway, do you really want a big tractor over your precious Green?

Our equipment includes 12 blade professional Greens mowers and verti-cutting mowers, battery powered pedestrian sprayers and close bladed scarifiers which will remove thatch at 10-12mm spacings rather than the 25mm of many scarifiers bought or hired by bowling clubs.

Greens aeration is carried out using the Groundsman 345 HD Pedestrian Aerator – The Professionals’ choice in Greens aeration. This machine has an elliptical plunge action which punches double the density of holes in your Green than the old roll-over machines and to a guaranteed depth (up to 5” if conditions are suitable). We offer a range of hollow, solid, chisel, needle and micro tines to perform complete year round aeration, thatch removal and over-seeding.

AUTUMN RENOVATION

Autumn renovation needs to be carried out as soon as possible after the bowling season has finished. During September and October soil and air temperatures should remain sufficiently high to ensure newly sown grass seed will germinate and establish before Winter. The earlier you can do this the better the results will be.

The best order in which to carry out the work is as follows:

Aeration using either solid or hollow tines.

Hollow tining should normally be done only every 3rd or 4th year. Excessive hollow tining can destabilise the surface without sufficient top dressing to replace the cores that are removed. All types of aeration will aid drainage, improve air flow into the rootzone, assist with the eradication of ‘Black Layer’ and improve depth of rooting. You can’t do enough solid tine aeration. During the playing season you should use smaller tines such as needle tines or a Sarel spiker which can assist with the application of wetting agents and granular fertilisers. Autumn is the time to aerate as deeply as you can. 4-5” is ideal if you are solid tining whilst hollow tining is typically 2-3” deep.

Scarification to remove thatch and moss.

Autumn is the time to do the most aggressive scarification. This should remove thatch and prune roots whilst providing the perfect conditions for the successful germination of your new seed.

Application of fine turf grass seed.

Having removed some of those weed grasses by scarification then you need to put back the best fine turf seed mixtures. We supply the best mixtures from Hurrell & McLean. Typically you would apply 15-20kg to an average sized Green. Don’t use DIY store seed as it will probably be more expensive and almost certainly inferior to these professional mixtures. Apply using a rotary spreader for even coverage. Nobody can spread grass seed by hand evenly.

Apply good quality Turf Top Dressing.

Normally we suggest a 70:30 Sand:Soil mix in 25kg bags (40 per tonne). Its delivered on a 1 tonne pallet shrink wrapped to ensure you receive it in perfect condition. Kiln dried sand and sterilised soil is used in our Top Dressings. Some suppliers will persuade you to buy it in bulk 1 tonne bags to save a little money. The problem with this is that you have to try and get it out of the bag and into your spreader. The even bigger problem is that if that big bag gets even slightly wet then you will have no chance of spreading it. Some suppliers even try to sell you bulk bags of moist soil and sand which is actually known as ‘Root Zone’. Its the mixture used in construction of golf and bowling greens and totally useless as a Top Dressing. How much you need depends on what type of aeration you have done. Ideally solid tine aeration requires between 1-2 tonnes of Top Dressing, whilst Hollow Tining will require 3-4 tonnes for an average size Green. Application should be done using perfectly dry material in a rotary spreader for best results. Dry Top Dressing will help to ‘bounce’ the seed into the scarification slits and ensure the best chance of germination. Get the spreading done evenly and there should be no need to drag the Green using a Drag Mat or Drag Brush.

Do not be tempted to apply your Autumn & Winter fertiliser during the renovation process. Almost all Autumn & Winter fertilisers contain some iron and whilst it will do a great job on blackening moss it also hardens the turf and has a stunting effect on germinating grass seed. its much better left for a month until the grass has germinated and is growing strongly.

Finally put up the ‘Green Closed’ signs and let nature take its course.

Germination during September can occur in 5-7 days whilst Greens sown a month later could take double that time. Sowing after the end of October will rarely result in good germination as soil and air temperatures drop. Most seed requires a minimum of 7degC to germinate and grow.

Call 07952 060657 today for advice or email us at turfgearamenity@gmail.com