Llanerch Golf Course and External Activities

The snow has arrived at Llanerch again! We have 2 inches of snow on the ground as of 11:00 am today and its 34 degrees. This day last year, it was 62 degrees! The forsythia were already in full bloom and we had completed installing mulch. I am hoping will we see the forsythia blooms by the weekend and have mulch out by Friday. Then again, with this unpredictable weather, who knows!

Yesterday, we were able to accomplish aerifying all the greens and most of the fairways. We used a 3/4 inch solid tines on greens that went 7-9 inches deep into the soil. This assists drainage, gaseous exchange and promotes root growth. We added dry topdress sand to the greens to fill the holes. We also rolled the greens to smooth out the surface.  The fairways were aerified with a 3/4 inch solid tine. We will start topdressing fairways today and throughout next week. The course is open for play today at 12:00pm.

With the weather going from bad to worse in the past few days, we have postponed greens aerification until tomorrow. We plan to be finished aerifying, todressing and brooming the greens by noon on Friday. This is all weather dependent.  We are hoping to have the course open by noon on Friday. I am sorry for the delay. I will post an update tomorrow to inform everyone on how the aerification is proceeding.

Attached is a picture of the single stem arborvitae shrubs that are going to be planted along the fence on #5 and behind #5 green on Township Line. We spent yesterday planting these same type of shrubs along the fence parallel to #3 tee and some behind the #2 green to the left. The shrubs will help reduce the noise and reduce the view of the street. It will take until some time next week to finish these plantings.

Geese are a real problem at Llanerch. Over the years, we have tried many techniques to move them off property. I think the first step is provide information regarding the geese. I have taken the following description from the Upper Dublin Township website : Canada Goose Biology There are 11 sub-species of the Canada goose. The sub-species causing us concern in Branta Canadensi Maxima, the "Giant Canada goose." This group, the largest of the sub-species, was thought to be extinct until re-discovered in the late 1960's in Minnesota. Great efforts were then made to re-establish the "Giant." The United States Fish and Wildlife Service, state wildlife agencies and organizations such as Ducks Unlimited started a massive breeding program at state and federal wildlife refuge areas. Pairs of geese had their wings clipped, thereby allowing them to give birth to and raise generations of young in one area. These offspring were then imprin...

As you can see from this picture, 9 green grew quite well under the green cover. We have mowed it twice in the past three days. We will continue to mow it every other day for the next week or so while lowering the height each time. We plan to aerify it middle of next week. We will have a better idea when it will open for play in the next few weeks.

Well, today's weather was a real surprise! We expected to spend the day cleaning up smaller tree branches  and other debris from the high winds of earlier in the week but Mother Nature changed those plans. We measured about 0.75 inches of snow on the golf course this morning but are seeing most of it melting away now. The course will freeze over night and then start to thaw mid-day tomorrow. This will make the course very wet. I can't envision us having the use of cart at all tomorrow. Sunday will all depend if it gets windy and helps dry out the the course. I think will will need to get very lucky to have carts on Sunday. We will update the Golf Shop as soon as possible.