Ending a Dry Week

Finally we got through a week with cooperative weather and great progress.  Things are beginning to become more routine but we continue to find time to institute some small projects and cultural tasks.  Monday was a huge day for us with the verticutting of greens and approaches, aerification of approaches, as well as topdressing of both greens and approaches.  Weather permitting we will aerify tees on Monday as well as start deep tining fairways. 
Some more cleanup tasks took place throughout the week as well.  A great deal of attention was focused on 13 tee.  Last year we put in place some perennial flowers "Basket of Gold" that are starting to bloom and look wonderful.  This week we added some African Daisy's that I think will thrive there and make a great colorful impact to that part of the golf course.  Some cleaning up around the tee and the addition of woodchips were some of the final touches.  Seeding has begun throughout the course in the rough.  Some areas came out of winter a bit weak so seeding is needed.  With the weather being as it has lately the optimum seeding window wasn't good.  Warmer temperatures are needed for this task so now we are getting in full gear.  Areas around the clubhouse are being addressed as well.  More areas will be targeted for cleanup  as we continue to move through spring.
One project we took on this week was the left side of  the 3rd hole Gold Tee.  Last year we removed the buckthorn to create for better growing conditions and now that the area is exposed the ground needed to be level and tee straightened.  Before the tee edge was pointing one towards 5 green, so we stripped the sod and straightened the edge as well as smoothing out the transition from tee edge to rough.  Pictures are below:

A part of Phase II will be wrapping up this week as well.  Over the last few weeks we've had a company in to install some new irrigation around the greens.  This addition will help us control water around the greens much better as head will be solely for greens and then another for the surrounding area.  We'll be able to water the surrounding rough and approach without watering the greens.  With that being said we also got our irrigation system up and running this week.  Usually it isn't this late for filling the system but with the rain we've received we haven't needed it but also with the irrigation work we just figured it would be easier if the pipe wasn't filled with water. 

Warmer temps over the next week will help pump the turf a bit more especially with greens.  Currently we've hardly had any growth with these cool and cloudy days.  In fact some turf is still dormant as the temps haven't been reached to bring them out of dormancy.  Soon that will pass and things will be terrific.  All I can say is what a great week and here are some photo's I took the other night just showing how good things are looking: