Wood chip mulch

We strive to be efficient and economical in all that we do. One such tactic that satisfies both of those principles is our use of wood chip mulch in the flower beds around the property.

This is our debris pile before it has been chipped.
We have created piles this big in each of the
last three years.

Several years ago, we undertook the task of trimming all of the trees on the property. We trimmed holes 1-9 in the winter of 2014-15, then holes 10-18 in the winter of 2015-16, then the entrance, soccer and tennis, and the front field near river road in the winter of 2016-17. This project generated a lot of debris. We stockpiled this debris in our back field and had our tree contractor chip all of the material on-site. We then used these wood chips as our own mulch for the flower beds all across Bretton Woods.

The bigger wood chips that are made are also beneficial because they don’t wash away as easily. Last week, we talked about adding stone to the flower beds to prevent washouts from heavy rain. The stone is strategically placed in areas that are prone to being ruined by flowing water. However, mulch can washout from a storm even in less likely areas, especially if that mulch is very light and finely textured. Nearly any type of mulch, or other material would wash away from the areas we have transitioned to stone, but the larger wood chips keep washouts from being more prevalent.

Here is the wood chip pile.

Lastly, the cost savings of using our own material is considerable as well. Purchased mulch is expensive. The mulch must be chipped several times to make it fine textured. Often times it must be dyed to give it a black or brown or even a red color. It must be shipped to the supplier and then delivered to the end user. All of these steps increase the price of the material. In very general terms, a 12 yard load of mulch costs about $350. The flower beds across the entire property would require about 15-25 loads of mulch, costing between $5250-8750. It does cost us some in labor and contract help to get our wood chips, but for the purchased mulch this would be a yearly cost because the purchased mulch fades, washes out easier, and needs to be replaced sooner. Our large wood chips are not dyed so the only color change is from natural to more natural, it washes out less, and it can go two years before replacement in most circumstances.

While there was a good deal of labor required to trim the trees, haul the debris to be stockpiled, and then hauling the mulch back to the flower beds, we still saved in the long run. We kept a closed loop of resources here at Bretton Woods and used money to purchase other materials rather than mulch.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please do not walk around the lip of a bunker. This can cause the sod edge to slide into the sand. Instead walk through the bunker and rake your disturbance on your way back out.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

Stone in flower beds

Slowly, but surely, one comes to realize that Mother Nature always wins. This is especially true for the Grounds department. The weather impacts everything we do and influences all of the decisions we make. Year after year, heavy rainstorms wash mulch from where we want it, to where we do not. Recently, we have continued to remove mulch from some specific areas and replace it with stone to better break the wave of running water.

Stone in flower bed in front
of Proshop

Water takes the path of least resistance and flows in the same paths repeatedly. When the flow of water travels through one of our mulch beds, its force will carry the mulch right along with it, and deposit the mulch anywhere. Mulch ends up on cart paths, in fairways, and generally in other places where we don’t want it. Each time a storm passes through, we try and identify areas where the water flow is disrupting our mulch. We then have to spend time and labor to repair everywhere the mulch was washed away. To make matters worse, if the storm was severe, the mulch may be our last priority for repairs. We most certainly will have bunker repair work to do, and we may have tree debris cleanup to perform as well. Which means the cleanup of the mulch comes last and looks bad the longest.

Stone in flower bed near putting green

The easiest and most effective way for us to alleviate some of this labor is to replace the mulch with something that will not be carried away by the water. We use landscape stone that is inexpensive and attractive. We mark the areas that are most impacted by rushing water, remove the mulch, soil, and other debris and then replace it with stone. The rocks break the stream of water, slow it down, and resist being carried away by the flow. We use two different sizes of stones, placed amongst each other to form a sort of interlocking breaker. The smaller stones fit in between the larger stones and, combined, they hold each other in place and can stand against the water.

There is some labor in switching from mulch to stone because each stone must be placed by hand. However, savings come immediately after the first heavy rain because we do not have to repair the mulch, and savings continue to pile up after each storm.

Stone in flower bed near 18 green

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please do not walk around the lip of a bunker. This can cause the sod edge to slide into the sand. Instead walk through the bunker and rake your disturbance on your way back out.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

Paving work

The mild temperatures of late February and early March were not only conducive to golf, they also allowed the Grounds staff to accomplish some projects ahead of schedule. We were able to aerate and start our winter weed control program. But the weather also allowed us to contract out some early season cart path paving work.

Our paving contractor was in quite a bind not having done any snow removal through the winter. Having a window of good weather and available time, the contractor began actively seeking paving work, which they usually don’t book until later in the spring and into summer.

We have a list of areas that we know need repair. In the past, we had saved our paving work until after Master Plan construction work has concluded in the summer and we had no initial plans of doing any paving in the spring. This year, though, we had several areas that were not going to be impacted by construction and could conceivably be done at any point. So, we had work that could be done now and would actually be less disruptive to golfers because it would be done before the golf season ramped up.

The contractor contacted us on a Wednesday, measured areas to be repaired on Friday, and began work the following Monday. It happened quickly because they wanted the work, the weather was perfect, and the impact on our membership would be minimal. With this confluence of factors, we were able to complete several high necessity areas: a long stretch on #4 that was severely crumpling along the edges, 3 separate areas on #8 that had multiple problems, a stretch on #10 that was greatly impacted by tree roots, and finally, a large area leading to and at the driving range tee. The work at the DR tee will have the most immediate impact. We extended asphalt towards the mat and removed the dirt/grass area where we could not keep grass alive and was very unattractive. We were also able to pave around the shed that is at the tee and eliminate the gravel. Finally, we paved a strip the entire length of the mat to again eliminate an area that was nearly impossible to grow grass.

There are certainly more areas that need repair and we will continue to evaluate the worst areas, however, we were lucky enough to have the window to accomplish work at this time and it all came together very quickly, and it will be good step forward for this season.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please do not walk around the lip of a bunker. This can cause the sod edge to slide into the sand. Instead walk through the bunker and rake your disturbance on your way back out.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org

Aeration and Bermuda grass update

March is here. Trees have started to bud, daffodils are up and growing, and the golf season is just around the corner. The turf has started to break dormancy and we have had some very spring-like temperatures over the last few weeks. With all that being said, as I write this, it is 17 degrees at the club!

Just to get everyone up to speed on our spring, we aerated greens this past week. We had the smallest of windows and the smallest of staff, but everyone did a great job and we aerated holes 1-18. We intend to do the practice greens later this week. While this is three weeks ahead of our scheduled aeration dates, it is the exact same time we were able to aerate the greens last year. Here is an excerpt from a past post discussing our reasoning for early aeration:

There are two main reasons for us wanting to start aeration as soon as we can. First, if the weather is conducive to allowing aeration then it will also be conducive to allow healing. By aerating sooner we will allow for more healing time and less impact on the start of the golf season. Second, by aerating early, we would be able to separate our aeration procedure from our seed head control program. You can read more about seed head control here or more about aeration healing and seed heads here. Bottom line is, if we aerate early enough, one practice won’t impact the other. One might wonder, then why we don’t just schedule aeration for an earlier time? We can’t count on the weather being favorable enough to plan aeration for too early. If it’s too wet or too cold and we miss our scheduled time, then we are stuck trying to fit it in around the early season golf. So we stick with our mid-March schedule and hope for earlier. This way, if we can’t do it early, but we are able to do it at our regularly scheduled time, the members are only impacted exactly as it was scheduled to happen and no worse.

So, while the temperature was cold this past weekend, overall, the trend looks normal or slightly warmer than normal, so healing should proceed nicely.

The Bermuda grass was also affected by the warmer than normal February. We spotted green Bermuda grass leaves on 2/12, which is the earliest in several years. By the end of February, there were visibly green patches on some of the southern facing slopes. The cold snap we experienced this past weekend will stunt any progress, but we are off to a fast start. But before we all get our hopes up of having green fairways by mid-March, we should expect a few more surprises in March (like the dusting of snow we had this past Friday morning). Nevertheless, any progress in February and March should help us towards earlier than normal green Bermuda grass.

Also, we will be returning to weekly posts March thru October. Thank you.

Etiquette Reminder of the Month

Please do not walk around the lip of a bunker. This can cause the sod edge to slide into the sand. Instead walk through the bunker and rake your disturbance on your way back out.

See you on the course!

Joe

jvillegas@bwrc.org