Summer heat has arrived.  This first hot spell looks to be short.  Cooler temperatures arrive tomorrow with hopefully some beneficial rain.  We have reduced inputs just a bit to weather the storm so to speak.  Mowing, rolling, cart traffic are all forms of stress on turf during very warm periods.  Adding to that is the turf's naturally shrinking root mass during summer and it is easy to see why cool season turf struggles in this heat.

We were able to squeeze in a solid tine aeration prior to the start of July.  This is very beneficial to our greens.  We try to perform this every other Monday during the summer when feasible.

We've experienced some pretty good storms that really bring the cicada flagging down.  This was last Saturday.

Shawn hand watering greens this morning.  There is plenty of this occurring during this heat wave. This is the most precise method of watering and we know what too much water can do.

Our young crewmen performing divot repair before the ladies tournament this morning.

Repairing an area that continually gets destroyed by delivery trucks.

It has been difficult getting our beds cleaned up and mulched but we are finally about there.

Wildflower beds continue to impress.  Here is Monardo or Bee Balm.

The purple flower is new to me.  Anyone know its name?

Liatris or Blazing Star.

Morning Glory (I think)

Asclepias or Butterfly Weed.  These are all flowers we are seeing in year two by 7 tee.

Look closely and you will see a hitch hiker on Luis' dashboard.  We saved the mouse but they are real pests during the winter nesting in many of our machines.

 It's Member Guest week.  It is always fun prepping the course for a big competition.  We continue to be in catch up mode but finally have enough labor to get caught up.  Some of our labor is pretty green so there will be some growing pains. 

It's Monday of Member Guest week.  Double cutting greens and edging bunkers.

Putting a nice edge on the greenside bunkers followed by tamping the entire perimeter.

Spraying the fairways prior to the big event.  Fairways are sprayed preventively every two weeks.

A light dusting of sand topdressing to help true up the putting surfaces.

Erosion controls being applied at our garden.

Some great practice technique at the chipping fairway.  Thank you!

Cicada remnants.  The dieback is from the female cicada laying her eggs in numerous slits along the outer branches of various trees.  Each female lays up to 400 eggs!

It's the first day of summer and the lake is full.

Juvenile red tail hawk recently fledged from the pine on the ninth hole.

Monarch butterfly on Pow Wow Coneflower.

 

 Well the nice fast golf course is gone for a while.  Over four inches of rain fell on Friday.  Nearly all the bunkers were washed out and today we are fixing the mess.  The weather does look promising as we enter the new week and looks down right spectacular for Ladies Member Guest.

Yeah we received a lot of rain.

Eleven pond went over the dam and into Sixteen green bunkers.  These poor fish were washed out.

Nearly every bunker suffered serious erosion.  This is the 3rd hole.

Several hours later after our heroes arrived we have this!

Excellent results from Trimmit growth regulator on the practice green.  The brown grass is the annual bluegrass severely suppressed and bentgrass growing into it.

New sand added to the practice bunkers.  Several bunkers on the course have received sand as well.

Pylex herbicide @ .10 oz/acre yellowing up common bermudagrass on fairways and tees.  I said that right- One tenth of an ounce per acre!

Finally weed free.  Thank you Julio and Pedro!

 Bit by bit we are catching up.  One more week and our summer help arrives.  For the first time not one college student on our labor staff.  Truly strange.

Hot off the press here is Francisco mowing our new and popular intermediate cut.  Thanks to our new Assistant Shawn Gill who labored getting the first cut done.

Here it is after it's second mowing.  The scalped look will gradually disappear.

It was a very Poa like spring but we have nipped it in the bud!  Here is some of the yellow Poa being crowded out by creeping bent.  Multiple applications of Trimmit Growth Regulator helped knock it out.

We are back to weekly light topdressing of greens.  Here Patrick pushes a spreader across six green.  Routine light sanding improves ball roll and turf health.

Look close and you will see the sand.  A light watering followed by rolling the next day knocks the sand down.

We have great workers.  This is Patrick trimming around the entire 11th pond before pushing the spreader.  Patrick's family use to be members.

More of our crew playing mulch catch up.

A new bee hive was added in the wildflowers below the third tee.  

 

  

It's a cool and wet Memorial Day weekend.  This is not the weather we would choose but it is good for the course and that's a positive.  Last week was very productive. We also received nearly two inches of beneficial rain.  Most of the heavy time sensitive applications are complete and we can now concentrate on growing turf.

The course is closed Saturday morning but that doesn't stop us from working.  Here some of our summer crew fill divots on the fifth fairway.  We are about two weeks out from having a full staff.

Our greens are performing well and this is an example of why.  Here is a cup plug from the first green showing some excellent rooting and aeration channels filled with sand.  Good turf starts at the roots.

Our second application of Dimension herbicide was spread in the rough this week.  Fairways were fertilized as well which will improve their density.

It has taken months to receive bunker sand due to some Covid issues.  Truckers are in demand and bunker sand is not on the top of the list for deliveries.  Here Francisco prepares to add new sand to the practice bunkers.  

We are looking at adding an intermediate rough cut around some of the fairways.  Here is an example of this on the 12th hole.  The primary rough is mowed at 2 1/2" and the intermediate rough is set at 2".

  

Here's a better picture illustrating the benefit to the player.  The turf does't like it as much so we will monitor it as we get into hotter weather.

The wildflower bed between eleven and twelve was seeded on Friday before the rain.  Can you say perfect timing or what!  Here the seed is mixed with sand to allow it to be spread more easily.  There is only six pounds of seed spread over about a half acre.  This mix is called Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden Mix and there are 31 species of plants in it!

Jose Nunez raking and tamping the seed bed after seeding.

This is a bed planted last spring featuring Lanceleaf Coreopsis.  The white flower is Tall White Beardtongue.

"A Touch of Class" hybrid tea rose.

Hidcote Hypericum just starting to bloom.

Say hello to a great American.  Our head equipment manager Oscar Garcia received his US citizenship on Wednesday.  It took him 21 years to achieve this!