Naperville Country Club Green Department: trees

Showing posts with label trees. Show all posts

Changes around 1 tee have been underway since last fall. Several projects have been done to provide a fresh look to this area. We are nearing the finishing stages and hope to have it wrapped up before the Fireworks Extravaganza on June 29th.

The project began last fall when 3 spruce trees were removed to highlight a maturing Bur Oak. Clearing of the overgrown shrubs behind the tee continued last week. The remaining shrubs that still stand behind the tee will be replaced with this project. We have a few steps to complete before we can remove those plantings and introduce new.

The curb was cut today to accommodate the new routing of the path, which will be out of the circle drive rather than around the back of the tee. The former cart path behind the tee will be cut narrower and used as a walking path. The additional area from narrowing the path will be used for the new plantings.

Work is also being done today to trim up the pines left of 1 tee. This work also involves defining grassing lines and spreading fresh pine needles under the trees.

The few areas on the course with pine trees got a face lift this week. These areas got the pine cones and sticks cleaned up and a cleaned up the edges of the pine needles. New lines for the pine needles were made in some areas.

The finished product leaves a clean look with clean lines.

We took advantage of the warmer temperatures this week and crept outside to trim some shrubs and trees in the landscaping around the clubhouse, halfway house and entrance. This is a good practice to prevent plants from over growing and ensuring they keep a proper shape.

This patch of junipers near the putting green was overgrown and the time had come to trim it back.

Here is a picture after the junipers had been trimmed. Not only will this ensure a plant that looks they way it is supposed to, it will allow more sunlight and air into the canopy which will make a healthier plant. We will be working our way through all of the landscaping as the weather provides us favorable conditions for outside work.

The weather had the drainage work on 11 stalled this week, so we turned our efforts towards getting the accessories off the course for the winter. Only a few trash cans and ball washers remain for any late season golfers. All signs, boundary stakes, and tee markers have be brought in for the winter as well. We closed the driving range tee this week and are almost finished filling the divots and having it ready for the winter.

The rain earlier this week has stopped the drainage work on 11 for a few days. We received just under 2 inches of rain for the week. The rain was heavy enough to allow us to get pictures of how the water moves across the fairway on 14 and down towards the approach. This will be the next area that a large drainage project is done.

This picture illustrates why 14 approach is often wet.

Leaf clean up has been the concentration today. The rain and heavy wind this week did a wonderful job of getting the majority of the leaves that were left in the trees onto the ground. We will be working on cleaning leaves all of today and into tomorrow. We feel like the fairway on 11 will be dry enough to allow us to revisit the drainage project tomorrow.

The leaves have started to change and the fall color is showing. It is very nice to see the color, but with that comes the falling leaves.

We try to keep up as best we can, but when a breeze is blowing like it is today, it is a futile effort.

The drain is completed on 14 fairway. This will eliminate the lagging wet area after rains. This is the first of several drains that we plan to install this fall.

The bag that is sitting off the right of hole 10 is the silt and muck that was pumped out of the pond on 11. The bag is designed to hold the silt while allowing the water to seep through. Once the water has dried, the bag will be cut from the pile of silt. This will take about 60 days.

After receiving preliminary recommendations from our tree inventory, we are beginning to remove some tree this week. We have not received the full report from our tree inventory yet, but we have received a list of trees that have been recommended for removal due to safety concerns. Many of the trees on the list have sustained storm damage at some time and have continued to decline. The assessment was none of these trees would ever be in better condition than they are now.

The noticeable trunk wound on this tree from a previous year's storm has caused this tree to continually decline. Because of its proximity to the cart path, it is in the club's best interest to remove now.

We started removing these trees yesterday, and will continue through the list this week and later into the fall as needed. It is likely that none of these trees will even be noticeable once they are removed because of their small size, or proximity to playing areas.

I am finally getting around to post about the lightning strike that has caused us some expected frustration with the irrigation system. The strike happened on the Saturday afternoon of Labor Day weekend (Sept. 3). Lightning hit the tree next to the halfway house and traveled to the roots and into the irrigation wires that are near the tree. The tree was split perfectly down the middle with half falling after being struck and the other half standing. The half that was left standing did have a large crack in it, so even if it had not have look the way it did, it would still have been removed.

The bark from the trunk was blown throughout the area.

The tree was shifted in the ground and roots and soil were blown our of the ground.

This is the irrigation pipe that was close to the tree that was blown apart. A few wires were burned, and naturally the electricity traveled through portions of the system. Several electrical boards were replaced in the satellite controllers on 6, 7, 14 and 15. A fused was blown in a satellite controller between 12 and 13 fairway, and an outlet in the pump house was burned from the strike.

This is a sampling of the boneyard that was created from the strike. We are still working to get a few heads fixed on the tee box at 7. The think we have the rest of them fixed at this point.

The remainder of the tree was taken down on the morning of Labor Day.

The tree inventory that was recently completed will give us lots of information regarding the health of our trees. We will not have the full report for a few weeks, but I will share some of the information that we have so far. With this post I will highlight the problem of stem girdling roots. There are many trees on the property that have this problem. Stem girdling roots happen when the roots grow around the trunk of the tree, just below the soil surface, rather than growing out away from the tree. As the trunk of the tree gets larger, the root begins to "choke" the tree preventing nutrient transport to the top of the tree.

These two trees show a good example of stem girdling roots. These two maple trees were likely planted at the same time as a pair. Obviously, the tree on the right is much larger and healthier than the tree on the left. The tree on the left has a stem girdling root.

The base of the tree shows one side of the trunk going straight into the ground which is characteristic of a stem girdling root.

This does not mean the tree needs to be removed, but it does mean the tree is not going to get any healthier. As the tree continues to survive, the integrity of the trunk will become compromised which will make it more susceptible to all types of environmental conditions.

Our trees received some attention this week. On Monday and Tuesday a tree inventory was done on the entire property and on Wednesday a tree climber was in to clean out the remaining hanging branches left from the storm 2 weeks ago.

This was the 3rd time that a tree inventory was done on the property. The first inventory was done in the mid-80's, then another in 2004. The purpose of this inventory is to get back to a starting point after the renovation project. The inventory does involve tagging and identifying each tree, but we will also get an assessment of its condition, age and recommended maintenance.

A tree climber is in the Ash tree right of 4 green to clean out some branches that were hanging in the top. This was done with several trees, after the wind that felled the spruce on 8 fairway also left several branches hanging in the tree. He was not able to finish on Wednesday and will be back out on Monday.

Here, the climber has cleaned out some branches from behind 2 green.

The latest storm did leave a large amount of clean up on the course, but the most noticeable evidence from it was the lack of power at the club until about 2:30 yesterday afternoon. Here is a series of pictures from the last two days:

Tree behind 2 green.

Yesterday afternoon after the clean up.

This was a project that we had a hard time finding good days to complete. The crew did a fantastic job on the days that we could work on it. We started planting these 10 days ago and through 4 days of rain, 2 outings, and a weekend they have been completed.

The crew used a piece of equipment to move the arborbitaes, but the prepping, digging, and backfill all had to be done by hand because of the small space.

(l to r) Adolfo, Alejandro, Antonio, Conny, Gustavo, and Inocente work at planting the arborvitaes.

We were able to sidestep the brunt of the storm, but the evidence of it was still present on the course. 1 small tree was lost, one large branch (pictured left, between 12 & 13 fairway), and lots of small branches and debris. We also received 0.80 inches from the storm and another 0.15 inches through the day today. We were able to make progress on the cleanup today. Most of the smaller debris has been cleaned from the course. We plan to get the larger debris cleaned up tomorrow.

This is the tree that was lost last night. A small hawthorn between 2 & 9 fairway.

A fuzzy picture, but another branch down.

We were fortunate to have not had any disruption to play through this. Other courses in the area were not as fortunate. Through mid-afternoon, some other courses were still without power and/or cleaning up more than 20 trees that were lost.

Last week the crew began adding to the line of arborvitaes that were planted last fall. This was an unplanned project for this year, but after the city made repairs to a sewer line near Chicago Ave. (Work On Cart Path Near 1 Green), the club had the opportunity to work with the city to repair this area.

One arborvitae will go to replace one that was broken during the winter months, after being the victim of a car sliding off the road and through the fence. The rest will continue the line along the fence towards 2 tee.

This will be a time consuming process to plant these. The confines of the location prevent the use of bigger equipment, so hand digging is the only method available. We hope to have this work done by the end of this week. While this is being done, the cart path to 2 tee is closed to allow room for the crew to work. Carts can drive along the path in the rough to get to 2 tee.

COURSE CONDITIONS

Label Cloud

Blog Archive

Connect With Us

Search This Blog

Twitter

Contact Us