After 6 (long) weeks
we finally finished the fairway draining to holes 1 and 8 last week. It
has been an intense period, but secondary drainage went on top of the
primary drainage. The big challenge for this area was irrigation
pipework and natural falls. Or rather a lack of it! In total we had to
cross the irrigation system 30 times, which was a huge challenge in
itself and very time consuming. The other issue was the lack of a
natural gradient on the 8th fairway. We managed to overcome both and
from the video to the left, it's always nice to see water gushing out at
the end!
The
secondary drainage system consisted of gravel banding at 90degree
angles to the land drainage. We included the 4th fairway in with this
work which had land drainage installed last year. A small trench was cut
about 30mm wide and 200mm deep, with gravel backfilled in to it. We
invested in this machine last year and even during the poor weather last
week, it left a nice job. We then top-dressed on top of this to finish
it off. As we sit on good old London clay, secondary drainage will be as
important as primary drainage long term.
Gravel Bander at work
The Finished 8th Fairway
All
this work has been completed in house. As well as the gravel bander we
invested in a chain trencher, which enable us to do so. We have now
completed our major drainage works for this year and in two years, 4
holes have had drainage installed in them. We will do some other minor
works around the place over the winter but the next big phase will
commence next autumn. Watch out the 2nd fairway. You are next on the
list!!!
Last week we had the pleasure of a storm ripping through Ealing Golf Course. It was not a pretty site and in total we had 25 trees that were either up rooted or had major limbs fall off them. The most dangerous one was at 6.45am when a poplar tree decided to fall on the A40, which is a major road out of London. Two lanes were shut whilst the greenstaff and police cleared the area. To cap matters off, the river decided to burst it's banks. We don't have these storms very often, but when they do come, destruction is left behind!
As you can guess it was a busy week with the greenstaff clearing up the debris. We would have to say that we have had better weeks but by the end of the week, all the major trees were chopped up and debris mostly cleared. It will take some weeks to clear fully but for the time being the golf course is playable again. From the pictures below you can see some of the issues that we faced!
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