Greens verticutting in "Pollenville"

 This morning we did our first verticutting of the year.  This process removes large and laid over leaf blades to make the greens smoother and faster.  I tend to like the results that we get from verticutting our greens in circles.  This has worked really good for us in the past.

 Verticutting in circles, in my opinion, hits the grass blades in different and unique angles different than what we could achieve from straight line verticutting.  This process also means that we are continuously verticutting and not making even more tire turns on the surrounds.

 After the verticutting we mow the greens with our new Jacobsen Eclipse 322 greensmowers to remove the excess grass clippings from the putting surface.

 After we mowed the greens the topdressing sand goes down.  We use our Dakota 410 Turf Tender spin topdresser to lay down a light layer of sand on the green.  This sand helps to reduce the thatch layer, smooths out the putting surface, and helps the putting surface absorb incoming shots.  We have used green dyed kiln dried sand for many years which we and our proshop likes because we can topdress at any time and unless the golfers see us out topdressing they can't tell and the usual complaints about topdressing the greens all go away.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DISGUSTING!!!

 The lovely city that we live in, Chattanooga, Tennessee, is annually listed as one of the top three cities in the nation for allergies.  It is a great place if you are an allergy doctor but not if your profession puts you outside every day during the spring.  This is a picture of #13 green that I took the other morning after a light rain that morning washed all the pollen on the putting green surface down to the front of the green.

 Here is a lovely picture of the lake in front of #14 green.  I like to call this the "Pollen Tidal Wave".  It is amazing and disgusting to watch the plumes of pollen moving across the air and then get washed up on the shoreline.  And to think that this is what we are breathing into our lungs everyday.