What's about?

Now the weather has finally warmed up a bit there are a few butterflies on the wing.  Green Hairstreak, Speckled Wood, Common Blue, Small Heath, Large White and Small White have all been seen this week.

Green Hairstreak
Inconspicuous as it spends a lot of time perched but look in sunny sheltered areas

Small Heath
Rough grassland

Speckled Wood
Woodland rides and woodland edge

Irrigation

June has been very dry so far with no measurable rain until this evening so the course is playing firm and fast.  (The greens were running at 10ft 6inches this morning at our normal 5mm height of cut.)

We've taken the opportunity to dry the greens out and stress out the Poa annua.  Drying out the greens tilts the balance in favour of the finer grasses that give us high quality putting surfaces all year round as they are more drought tolerant. 

Irrigation has been carried out over the last couple of weeks but this has mainly been on bunker banks, green surrounds and heavily worn areas.  Hand watering is an important part of our irrigation programme as it enables us to target the areas that are most in need of water.  Although some of these areas are within reach of the automatic sprinklers, if we apply enough water through the pop up sprinklers to meet the needs of the driest areas the surrounding area is overwatered. 

Trevor hand watering on the 5th hole

Weather summary for May

The cold spring continued with a very chilly May.  The average temperature was 10.6 degrees which is well below normal for May,  The highest temperature recorded was 19 degrees and the lowest 2.3, again well below the average high of 22 and low of 3.9.  The rainfall total was 32.8mm.