Stump Grinding

We were able to get all 45 or so stumps ground this last week with a rental from Vermeer.  The grinder was a SC652 that was a beast.  All stumps were done in about a day and a half.  We purchased the stump grinder rental at the 2015 HAGCSA Scholarship and Research Tournament back in June.  Not only was it a great deal for us, but we were able to contribute to local scholarships and research at Kansas State University and the University of Missouri.

We had to take down a few remaining stumps.  Most were not quite this big

Here is the stump grinder at work up by the clubhouse.

We'll spend the rest of the week picking up the debris, and will soon back fill with topsoil and sod.

Native Area Burning

We were able to get most of our natives burned with the assistance of the Kansas City Parks burn crew.  The areas on 12, 17, 14, and 15 where we battled weeds last year are all completed.  We still have some smaller areas to finish, but have gotten off to a great start.  This is the first time in 8 years we've been able to get the burn accomplished.

Area between 17 tees and fairway.

Another view of the area in front of 17 tees and the right side of 12.

Area between 14 tees and 15 green.

This area that is between 12 and 17 is a ball magnet.

10 Tee Cleanup and Ornamental Transplanting

Here are some more of the ornamental grasses that we divided and moved to the back of 15 tee and 13 tee.

We also divided some other ornamental grasses and ringed the backside of 15 tee.

We did the same on the back of 13 tee along with clearing out more brush.

10 Tee Cleanup

The following are some pictures of clean up we have done along the left side of 10 tee box.  We started by dividing the two overgrown ornamental grasses that were right next to the tee.  We were able to divide these into 15 individual plants which we spaced out along the entire left side of the tee.  In the mean time, we cleared brush and vines along the left side that were becoming overgrown.  This will make a big difference on the appearance of this tee complex.

The two ornamental grasses that we divided into 15 plants.  They are black because we burned them down a few weeks ago.

This is how the tee looked before doing any clearing.  You can see the tree branches were starting to stick out over the edge of where we mow.

After clearing some of the brush back.  Also, you can see some of the ornamental grasses spaced out for planting.

After heavy limning of trees and clearing of brush.

All the newly divided ornamentals spaced out along the left side of the tee.

Fairway Aerification and Native Mowing

July has been a busy month trying to keep the golf course irrigated and the greens healthy.  So far, we have done fairly well considering the rain gauge for the month.  July is a time we also are able to complete a few other tasks as the mowing of the rough and our green and tee banks slows down.  Below are a couple of pictures of our fairway aerification.  This is done during the summer months on zoysia grass when it is growing at its peak.  The fairways are aerified, dragged with a mat to break up cores, and then mowed.  After the process, the holes are barely noticeable.  We only complete about 2-3 fairways a day because of time restrictions.  We will hopefully be done by late next week.



Tractor pulling the aerifier.

Close up of the plugs.

July is also a time for us to mow down our native grasses and treat for weeds.  We do this now after the seeds have begun to lay over.  This also allows us to spray over the top with our spray rig to remove unwanted plants.

Picture from left of #12 before mowing.  Notice all of the weeds that have popped up.

After mowing with a brush hog.

Storm Damage

Last nights storm caused a few trees to come down and some larger limbs.  All in all, I think we did alright considering how strong some of the winds were.  We will have most of the cleanup done today.  Below is a couple of pictures taken this morning as the cleanup began.

The largest tree to fall between 18 and 10.

This tree luckily fell the opposite direction of our irrigation control box.

Leaf Cleanup

The leaves have been falling for a couple weeks, and we are well underway with cleanup.  This is a large undertaking here at Swope because of how many trees we have.  Our main mode of removal is through the use of blowers.  We have two pull behind buffalo blowers that we can maneuver around trees with ease.  We also have a larger tractor mounted blower that we save for the larger areas.  For the most part, we corral the leaves across the rough and fairway until we get them to the trees where we blow them as far into as possible.  In areas where a tree line is not practical, we use our large rough unit to mulch the leaves as much as possible and then blow them again to disperse through the rough.  We will continue to blow and mulch leaves for another few weeks until most all of them have dropped.