Tree work

Some tree surgery work was done on the river course pines today as some of them had dangerous hanging branches that had been broken by the winter storms.

Work in progress on one of the pines

Scrub clearance

We've cleared out the very untidy area of brambles, dead gorse and broom from behind the 5th medal tee.  Gorse has been transplanted to the area with the aim  of providing a good evergreen screen between the 5th tee and the 7th fairway within a few years.

Another area has been cleared right of the 16th green to open up a new route route to the 17th tee. The phenomenal rate at which the gorse can expand was evidenced by the fact that we found a junction box for the irrigation system in the middle of the cleared area.  17 years ago the area must have been open grassland for the large machinery that installed the pipes to get access.

Over the winter good progress has been made on the gorse coppicing programme with most of the work being done on holes 9 to 12.  Coppicing work has finished for this winter as the bird nesting season is upon us.

The photos below show the work behind the 5th tee

Before - Looking from the 7th

Before - Looking from the 5th medal tee

Planting the gorse

The finished job

Weather summary for February

We had 31mm of rain in February which is a little below average and the temperature was close to average with 4.6°.  Last year the February average was 7° which gave us significant grass growth but this year there has been none.  The maximum temperature was 10.8° on the 25th and the minimum was -1.8° on the 2nd.