Fineness of leaf and closeness of cut makes for supersmooth bowling green
Dennis mowers are famous for their Bowls seminars, but the one held recently at the Ye Olde Knowle Bowling Club contained a surprise for British Seed Houses. Harvey Brereton, greenkeeper at ENTACO Bowls Club, Studley, Warwickshire, was a delegate at that Seminar and extolled the virtues of the close mowing he got from his 12 year old Dennis FT510 – so much so he’s put a new one on his wish list! But it was when Toby Clarke of Dennis was putting the changeable cassettes of the new FT510 through its paces that Harvey mentioned his green was entirely sown with BSH’s velvet bent cultivar, Avalon. Sowing of Golf Greens with a pure velvet bent like Avalon is something BSH advocates, but to hear of a Bowls green was out of the ordinary. Harvey explained, ‘about 5 years ago I started to use a BSH Grade A mixture that contained Avalon and was so impressed that I experimented with overseeding with just Avalon. This variety can withstand low cutting - down to 3mm - and gives fine leaf coverage.’ The Dennis FT mower plays an important part of Harvey’s regular maintenance routine on the green being able to cut so low, ‘I get a light dust off the green – in much the same way as putting a light dust on when sowing such a fine seed’, he says. He oversows the greens with Avalon in September as they’re usually lucky enough to still have some warmth in them to help the seed to germinate. The County plays regularly on his greens and are more than happy with the resistance the grass gives when bowling - the balance of the bent grasses and the fine cutting of the Dennis mower result in a playing surface that everyone’s happy with. He calls himself an amateur Greenkeeper, but he’s also a keen player if he gets the time to play during the season!