Cinnabar Hills Riparian Areas

Aside from the golf course, the Maintenance department also manages the riparian areas throughout the golf course.  We have 10.17 acres that were constructed per the mitigation agreement.  Per the agreement, there are many standards that we must achieve in order to stay in compliance.  The biggest one is that we must maintain 80% survival in years 1-3 and 60% survival in years 3-10.  If we were to fall below that standard, we go back to year 1.  I am proud to say that the staff and myself have never had a failing year.  The other items that are monitored are percent cover, basal area, tree height, and overall site maintenance.  The quarterly monitoring is done by Live Oak Associates.

The species of plants and trees that you will find in our riparian areas are as follows:

     Valley Oak, Coast Live Oak, California Bay, California Sycamore, Red Willow, California Buckeye
     Mexican Elderberry, California Wild Rose, Mugwort, Pacific Blackberry, Common Snowberry,
     Coyote Bush, & California Sage

Each riparian area needs to be weed free and the native grasses must be kept low.  The reason for this is to give the raptors the opportunity to catch the gophers and other critters that may impede the development of the riparian areas.  Each area also has drip irrigation to every plant to ensure proper establishment and the irrigation must be maintained regularly.  As the riparian areas become more established the irrigation is slowly reduced until seasonal rains will suffice. The ultimate goal is to leave behind a naturally reproducing riparian area.

Greens Height in Dollars & Sense

Today we took the mowing height of the greens down to 0.100" from 0.110".  Even I have trouble wrapping my head around how low technology allows us to cut so I figured I put it into terms all tax brackets can understand.

If you take five, 100 dollar bills and fold them twice, you will have .100" on the calipers.  If you are in the lower tax bracket, you can stack two dimes on top of each other and get .100" on the calipers.

Pretty amazing if you ask me.  We will remain at this height until sometime in mid September.  If you check the mechanic's notes, every September I get the itch to go lower for no other reason than we can.  The gain in speed is nominal, but I feel our A-4 bentgrass greens are maintained better at these lower heights.

Coast Live Oak Treatment

 ArborWell was here again this past Wednesday finishing the treatments to the remaining oaks.  We had originally done only half due to the large cost and the fact that it wasn't a 100% guarantee.  With new buds breaking on most of the browned out branches, I decided to go ahead and finish the treatments.

I spent some time with ArborWell's operator Jay and it was really enjoyable spending time with him.  I asked him numerous questions about our trees and other issues going on in the area and Jay was able to answer everything for me.  I mention this because no matter who I talk with at Arborwell, I'm going to get the same information and quality work which is refreshing.

What Jay did for us was root inject a mix of biostimulants for general plant health and an insecticide for spider mites.  He also drilled into the trunk and applied a fungicide for Coryneum which is known to cause a twig canker on oaks.  The delivery method for the fungicide is really cool and also really safe.  After drilling the holes, all Jay had to do was pop in the fungicide packs and let it flow in.  It took 10-15 minutes for the fungicide to move in to the trunk.

In total, we sprayed 31Coast Live Oaks.  The recent rains will only enhance the treatments as better uptake by the tree should occur.

A New Edge

This year we have tried a new edging technique around the curbed borders that provides a much cleaner look.  We initially began the process with an edger, but found that using a flat shovel resulted in a cleaner edge and it was actually faster than the edger.  Going forward we should be able to clean the edge with a weedeater.  What was amazing was that we removed around 10 yards of material and our curbs are only at greens, tees, and par 3's!

Side note: While writing this post, I kept thinking of the movie 'The Cutting Edge' and toe pick.  After looking it up, I came to find out that they actually made a sequel in 2005.  Just another sad story of remaking an American classic :-)

Perfect Practice

For the past couple of months Cinnabar Hills has been a weekly practice facility for the Women's Golf Team of Santa Clara University.  Even if I was  wearing my Carhartts and still feeling cold, the girls were out there practicing their putting and short game.

The Santa Clara Women's Golf Team were here practicing again this past week and I saw something that just warmed my heart.  One of the girl's was practicing her putting on a towel like I wish so many of our customers would do.  By doing this, footprints will not be burned into the putting surface like the picture shown.  It really helps having somebody out there leading by example and I thank the team and their coach for doing things the right way.