Fall Summary

It's been an eventful few weeks in our department.  Between greens aeration, rough aeration, seeding, and battling the longest dry spell in Fawn Lake's history, we've not had much time to exhale.  Here is a summary of what's been happening...

• For those keeping score at home, we went 27 days without rain (September 13th to October 9th).  That is the longest dry spell in my 17 years at Fawn Lake.  
• The greens bounced back very well from aeration although the dry spell didn't help.
• The rough aeration and seeding was postponed through much of September due to the lack of rain.  Trying to aerate soil that is as hard as concrete is not easy.  
• Seed is now down for the most part, but we have a few places where we are working to get it in the ground.  The "hot spots" in need of repair are usually areas where traffic is concentrated, trees are nearby, soil is poor, irrigation coverage is weak, or a combination of some or all of these.  We've used some different varieties in hopes of finding something that can tolerate these conditions better than our typical tall fescue blend.  Creeping red fescue, hard fescue, chewings fescue, etc...are being used in hopes of finding something that can endure the season.  
• We are currently working our way through tee aeration.  This may cause some disruption, but is preferable to closing the course.  We just ask for your patience and understanding as we work our way around the course.  

Jimmy is using the Aer-a-vator to seed the left side of 7

This is the left side of 7.  It suffers from shade, tree roots, concentrated cart traffic,
and lack of irrigation.  Growing grass in this type of situation is an uphill battle.

This is from mid September.  You can see the affects of no rain. The
 zoysia looks like it's going dormant 6 weeks early.