Park Rangers

15th November 2022: You'll be bowled over by the quality of the sports pitches

This week we have a guest blogger - Steve McKenna, Operations Manager for the Parks and Foreshore Team.

Please check out my blog on the work that goes on over the winter to ensure our sports pitches are in great condition come the start of the respective seasons.

The cricket, outdoor bowling green and croquet seasons may be over for this year, but the work never stops for our Grounds Maintenance team, who have embarked on the autumn programme to ensure our summer sports pitches will be in tip-top shape for next year.

It is the perfect time of year to give our sporting green spaces in Adur and Worthing some tender loving care as the weather is still fairly mild, there is moisture in the ground and the air temperature is good as the fine turf responds well to the work.

There are five parts to the essential maintenance programme that we undertake:

Scarification: This is the process of cutting rhizomes, Rhizomes are how grass grows and spreads and are horizontal offshoots of grass which allows them to grow and by the end of the season have grown so much they need to be removed as they can cause diseases and prevent moisture from getting past the grass down to the roots. Their removal is by a specialist machine that has a rotating roller with vertical blades that spin very fast and cut and pull out all the dead grass called “thatch” to ensure the grass is healthy and can absorb moisture easily and prevent grass diseases.

Photo: Thatch removed from one bowling Green at Church House Grounds

Mowing: The scarification process produces lots of dead grass that needs to be collected and removed from the playing surfaces with a high quality cylinder mower. The bowling green or cricket table is usually mown in opposite directions to ensure as much thatch as possible is collected. You can see in the image the amount that was removed from one bowling green.

Dimpling: This is a machine that runs over the bowling green and has a cylindrical drum with one-inch long metal nodes across its surface which create depressions for fine turf grass seed to be sown into the surface. This is used as opposed to spiking or hollow tining when the grass is essentially in good condition and just needs a small depression for grass seed to fall into across the green. (Photo: Dimpling and top-dressing a bowling green)

Top-dressing: This is the adding of a quality mix of 70% sand and 30% topsoil that is worked into the upper surface that leaves the bowling green flat and fills in any small undulations and helps ensure a quality microclimate for the seeds to germinate. It is normal for grass seed to be lightly covered with soil to germinate (Plus it helps ensure that the pigeons and other birds don't have a massive feast eating up all the seeds sown. For cricket, a soil (Loam) with a high clay content is used to ensure there is always a firm surface that is demanded for the game.

Slitting: This is a process where another type of machine with a rotating cylinder with metal blades spin and cut into the top two inches of the bowling green to allow aeration and moisture to penetrate. This is not usually carried out in autumn but later in winter once the grass seed has germinated and is growing healthily. This allows moisture and air to penetrate the soil down to the roots to help ensure they are healthy and ready to grow in spring when the temperature starts to rise

This process has been carried out in Adur over the last two weeks at Southwick Recreation Ground, which has two bowling greens, Buckingham Park and Lancing Manor.

In Worthing, the two bowling greens at Beach House Park, Church House Grounds, Field Place's bowling green and croquet lawn, Marine Gardens' putting green and the cricket tables at Manor Sports Ground (2), Broadwater Green, Fernhurst Recreation Ground, Goring Recreation Ground and two each at Hill Barn Recreation Ground and Rotary Recreation Ground.

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15th June 2022: Sounds of the summer

Hi - my name is Emily and I am the blogger of the week from the Park Rangers' Team.

“Other things to keep an eye out for are the many butterfly species that inhabit our green spaces.”

This week I am taking a look at how important wildlife is and, with numbers in decline, how we must preserve their natural habitat.

This time of year when walking through green spaces you can often hear the sounds of bird songs, the buzzing of bees and, if you're quiet enough, the chirping of grasshoppers hidden amongst the flowers and long grasses.

Did you know that there are 11 native species of grasshopper present in the UK and each species produces a different noise. So much so that, like birds, you can tell which species it is from the sound alone. Listen out for them as you walk through the paths around and in between patches of renaturing in your local green space.

Other things to keep an eye out for are the many butterfly species that inhabit our green spaces. They will appear quickly fluttering from flower to flower on sunny and still days. From the more common red admiral to the marbled white, there are more than 58 species of butterfly native to the UK, many of which can be found in Sussex.

Sadly, though, due to habitat loss and fragmentation the populations of many of these species has been steadily declining, which is why the creation of more habitats for them is so important with species such as the small tortoiseshell decreasing in population by a massive 80% in South East England since 1990.

Photo: Marbled white butterfly

When you think about bees, the first thing that comes to mind is often the Bumblebee. An easy-to-spot iconic insect of which there are 24 different species that live in the UK - all of which are social and live in colonies ranging from a few dozen to several hundred. You'll often see them buzzing away in between different types of flowers as they gather nectar and pollen to take back to the hives. Despite some common fears, the bumblebee is very unlikely to sting and will only do so when feeling threatened.

The renaturing of greenspaces is important to support insects by, not only creating more habitat for them, but also by creating corridors allowing them to travel between larger pieces of habitats that were once joined together, allowing for populations to expand and to mix between individual groups and sites and therefore helping to prevent local extinctions of species. This has a knock-on effect by supporting many other species as insects form the base for many food chains and are vital for the pollination of many types of flowers.

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