With Horticus (aka John Paxton)
Grasses & Lawns
Green fields of England! Whereso’er
Across this watery waste we fare,
Tour image at my hearts we bear-
Green fields of England everywhere.
A.H.Clough.
When I was preparing for a talk I gave recently I was reminded of Charley who first got me interested in turf management at an early age. Charley was the self taught part time grounds man for the church bowling club which had a green in our field He had worked down the pit and had a hacking cough to prove it, but he had an affinity with nature and plants. It always seemed a bit odd but the main hobbies of miners were homing pigeons and chrysanthemum growing. In fact one of the favourite varieties for exhibition was Alfreton Beauty-it was a lovely pure white large incurved flower in contrast to the grimy pit town from which it got its name. An abiding memory is when he decided "to have a go at the worms’ and we spread Mowrah Meal (a mixture of loam and chemical which brings the worms to the surface over the green) in heavy rain as there was no water supply and it had to be watered in. The next morning the surface was a mass of squirming worms which had to be raked up.
In local league cricket there were many colliery teams which vied with each other to produce good wickets and some even had semi-professionals who were a fount of information on preparing wickets to suit their side's strengths. To neuter the efforts of fast bowlers a liberal use of Nottinghamshire marl, plenty of water and a heavy farm roller was used, but when our own bowlers complained we had to resort to Surrey loam which bound the surface but produced a more sporting wicket, Nottinghamshire marl was a dry powdery red clay which when watered and rolled produced a flat placid surface that did not break up. Its use was responsible for the pre-war featherbed pitches at Trent Bridge on which large scores were made. I visited the Sports Turf Research Institute in the rugged north and the Director, Mr.R.Dawson used to say that lawns are essentially a collection of living plants - in fact it is a crop, the yield being gathered in terms of attractiveness. It is evident that many turf troubles are man-made and they could be avoided with care and imagination.'
The maintenance of grass for sports turf, lawns and farm fields require a different approach. Before the interference of man all the fertility that the flourishing grasses took from the soil was returned by the dying stems and leaves of the grasses, nothing was lost and nothing carried away. In fact the fertility increased as nitrogen was taken out of the atmosphere and added to the soil. At the moment lawns are looking tired and yellowy because the melting snow has washed a lot of important nutrients out of the top few inches of soil. One of the purposes of dressings of fertiliser in the spring is to replace this lack and a spring lawn fertiliser will have a high nitrogen content which is essential for the growth of leaves. This should be applied later in the spring, when the grass is beginning to grow avoiding dry weather to prevent scorching of the grass. It is worth using a proper applicator on large areas. I would not use any lawn fertiliser containing lime as the finest lawn grasses do not like limey soils and it encourages coarse grasses, earthworms and clover. The spring dressing is the most important but further feeding may continue during the summer being careful of scorching during hot dry spells.
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