Trees

The recent storms and wet weather have slightly spoiled  what has been an awesome golfing year. We have had very little frost, none in the soil and the course conditions, especially the greens have been very good throughout the winter.

Unfortunately,  the high winds recently have meant that we have lost a few large trees. The plan is to get them all cut up and tidied on Monday and Tuesday before New Year,  so we can start the winter projects as soon as 2014 starts. We have a lot to do. The plans is to complete all the ninth improvements in January so we can start the 16th in February.

We have lost a large silver birch on 18 (above and right), while we have lost large pines on 10 and 2, an oak and two large beech on Bearwood Road. Fortunately, most of the trees haven't been in play.

We have quite a large amount of woodland work to do this winter, even more now! and the plan is to continue to promote the indigenous trees on the estate, which are generally beech, oak, some birch and pine. We really try to allow key trees to develop and grow, which will encourage large healthy specimens. This does mean that we do have to do quite a lot of thinning,  but it does mean we have more healthy trees, which are much more storm resistant. Areas such as the left of 16th green, which were planted ten or 12 years ago are a great example. There are some great beech trees in here and we do need to thin out some of the other trees to allow the better ones to grow to the size of the one below on the right which is one of the best trees on the estate.