Winter Work at IHCC

Lots of action from our reduced maintenance staff this winter, as mother nature has been very accommodating.  We have done extensive root pruning where damage from tree roots is occurring.  We were able to access a trenching machine with which we have been able to root prune many areas.  Normally this would be done with the pipe pulling blade, leaving just a small slit.  But, roots were so thick in most areas that we had to use the trencher to power through them.  As you will see from the photos, the roots were so heavily massed that it has been very difficult to grow quality turf because the tree roots could easily out compete the grass roots for water and nutrients.  Our arborist explained tree rooting to me this way; " turn a tree upside down, and double the size - that's how far the roots can reach".

Extensive tree work is now underway.  At the club we have thousands of trees, many of which are injured, damaged, broken, or just over grown for their current position.  On a private golf course where quality turf is a necessity, often trees are doing more harm than good.  We try our best to have the best of both worlds, but turf comes first and we are taking strides to improve

wherever possible.  

We have removed a number of Black Cherry trees that were on the right edge of #9 fairway.  These trees restricted cart traffic and their roots made it nearly impossible to keep the hill alive during summer months.  We intend to widen the fairway in the landing zone and have pruned the 3 remaining trees to insure their health.  We will be having the stumps removed to stretch the fairway and will be adding nearly a dozen Red Cedar trees between 16 tee and 9 fairway to provide separation of the 2 holes. 

Stay tuned......