Weather: Sunny
Team: Formal
I helped Kerry put some proper labels out, temporary plastic labels are used when the actual ones haven't been done yet.
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| Chamaecyperis lawsoniana 'Lutea' |
Then I worked with Billy and helped trim the bottom of some conifers in the Conifer Lawn -
Chamaecyperis lawsoniana 'Lutea'. The reason why we did this is the bottom of them were overhanging onto the turf grass, so it was to prevent it from ruining this and makes it easier for the lawnmower to cut it. But the only thing it is of that's plant nature to sprawl in that way, so cutting it away from the grass did make it look odd.
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| Juniperus squamata 'Meyrii' |
Then it was all hands in on laying some turf in the Walled Garden for a new design there. The Turf Team took part in this too. The beds in the soil was first compacted with a roller. They first tried to do it with a machine called a 'Whack A Pad' but unfortunately it didn't work, so they had to use a good old cylinder roller. Then it was marked out with string and some metal sticks. Then mounds of sand was transported and placed on top of the bed, then smoothed out with a long stick to create a layer of sand in the middle of each bed (in the area where it was marked; see below) and more tamping down was done with the roller.
A top dress lawn fertiliser was scattered on the surface and a thin layer of sand was chucked onto it as evenly as possibly, thinly raked over it, then ironed over with the roller again.
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| Top dress lawn fertiliser scattered on the top of the sand |
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| The sand being rollered again, after a thin layer of sand was raked over layer of fertiliser. |
It was interesting laying turf to a different shape then a straight rectangle or square. We had to fit it to the shape as efficiently & cost effectively as possible (using the least amount of turf to cover an area but for it still to be well covered). For the tricky corner bits, we often found off-cuts of bigger pieces helped, the key was to not to use too many small pieces, as there was a bigger chance of these drying out. The general rule is to have lines overlapping like in brick laying to reduce the probability of this also.
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| Spreading the body weight over the turf. |
As the ends of each roll of turf were not guaranteed to be straight, to assure a better fit, we would overlap the turf about 1cm, cut it close where it overlapped then laid them tight next to each other. There are technical terms in making them fit better - to tease and knit the turf together. Once we had laid it out we would go round making all the lines were teased and knitted together properly. We would either stood only on boards or laid on the turf to do this, to spread our body weight out as much as possible, so no one area got compacted down too much.
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| Overlapping the turf by approx. 1cm and cutting it at this point for more fitting edges. |
Then the turf was very well watered and rolled with a roller again. The turf will continue to be well watered in the next couple of weeks depending on the weather.
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| Kerry at the back watering the turf in. |
