Tag Archive for: Create

DLF helps Bristol Golf Club create the right first impression

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DLF helps Bristol Golf Club create the right first impression: Despite a year of challenging weather, Bristol Golf Club has seen a remarkable improvement in its playing surfaces and overall visitor experience thanks to innovative seed solutions from DLF.

The team, led by Course Manager Dave Taylor, introduced Johnsons J 4Turf 50 across all 27 tees in early 2025 which has gone on to demonstrate outstanding resilience and strong performance, coping with the pressures of a busy championship course.

DLF helps Bristol Golf Club create the right first impression

DLF helps Bristol Golf Club create the right first impression

With far reaching views across the Severn Estuary into Wales, Bristol Golf Club boasts an 18-hole Championship Course, a 9-hole Par 3 and 18-bay driving range alongside a whole host of other practice facilities and corporate grounds. Seeking to deliver lasting improvements on and off the course for the last eight years is Dave Taylor who turned to DLF Regional Technical Manager Ian Barnett to tackle some particularly problematic areas prone to wear, disease and drought.

“We’re an incredibly busy site, with high levels of foot traffic on the tees which also don’t all have the benefit of full irrigation” Dave explains. “Because of this I spoke with Ian about a harder-wearing mix, that would germinate quickly and tolerate the challenges of footfall and less than ideal weather conditions.” The solution came in the form of J 4Turf 50 from the Johnsons Sports Seed range. The 50/50 blend of diploid perennial and tetraploid perennial ryegrass ensures rapid establishment even under low soil temperatures and creates a deep-rooting, disease-resistant sward.

DLF helps Bristol Golf Club create the right first impression

DLF helps Bristol Golf Club create the right first impression

“Even in the extreme weather, the results we’ve seen have been outstanding” Dave says. “It germinated quickly and, what small amount of dormant seed we had, kicked straight into action as soon as the rain returned in early September. The recovery, density and wear tolerance on all of our tees has been exceptional.” He adds, “Not only have we not had to do any additional autumn overseeding on the tees, we’ve also not seen any Dollar Spot this year which means we’ve saved time and money by not having to apply any fungicides.”

Beyond course playability, Dave has also worked with DLF to create a strong first impression for members and visitors with the introduction of a new wildflower area at the club entrance. Created with Carnival from DLF’s Colour Boost collection, the vibrant display of bright and bold annuals in the spring became quite the talking point. “Because we host weddings and corporate events alongside the golf, these visual touches make a big difference.”

The return of the rain has meant new waves of colour are now emerging, with plans in place to expand the trial to new planting areas across the course in 2026. “The flowers don’t just deliver visual impact, they help us to enhance biodiversity – creating environments to encourage and support all types of insects and wildlife.”

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Green-tech helps create first purpose-built biophilic primary

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Green-tech helps create first purpose-built biophilic primary: St Mary’s Catholic Voluntary Academy in Derby suffered a devastating fire in October 2020, demolishing the site. A new multi-million-pound school has now risen from the ashes to become the UK’s greenest school.

St Mary’s is the country’s first biophilic school and has been built as part of a pilot project for the Department for Education (DfE).

Green-tech helps create first purpose-built biophilic primary

Green-tech helps create first purpose-built biophilic primary

Biophilic design focuses on connecting those inside, with nature, to promote physical and mental health. The goal for St Mary’s is to be net zero carbon in operation where the amount of carbon emissions added is no more than the amount taken away, making it the UK’s greenest school.

Horizon Landscapes are Landscape and Grounds Maintenance Contractors based In Nottingham. They were awarded the tree planting and soft landscaping contract for this pilot project.

As part of the landscape strategy, 100 new trees were planted, many of which were semi-mature to help the school become quickly embedded in the Biophilic landscape. Additional landscape features include rain gardens, season bulb planting, green roof, and wildflower meadows to maximise biodiversity and local ecology.

For planting in the hard landscaped areas Green-tech supplied 128 TreeParker® units, 40 tonnes of Green-tree Geosoil and 40 tonnes of Green-tree Subsoil. The TreeParker® Cell System is an underground structural soil cell system that provides an ideal environment for trees to thrive beneath the pavement in urban environments. The system provides large volumes of non-compact high-quality soil and maximises the usable space beneath the ground, providing unlimited expansion for unimpeded root growth, while supporting traffic loads at the same time. It is ideal for new trees in areas such as pavements, car parks, and green roofs. In addition to this key function, TreeParker® aids stormwater management within the system, dealing with rainwater runoff at source – the ideal SuDS solution.

Green-tech supplied 85 tree anchor systems for the installation of trees into the soft landscaping scheme. Green-tech has a range of tree anchor systems designed to provide much-needed anchoring and stability for newly planted trees. In most cases, the tree anchor is secured over the root ball, providing greater contact with the surface area of the root ball and in turn improved root support for the newly planted tree.

Amanda Greaves, Executive Headteacher at St Mary’s, comments: “I am so delighted for the children, staff, parents, and wider community as we begin the next chapter in the new St Mary’s, the greenest school in the UK. It has been an absolute privilege to be part of this incredible pathway project. I think the best thing about the new building is being able to see all of the outside areas from all of the buildings and everything is integrated. We have 100 trees, the trim trail, and lots of benches and everything feels calm and relaxed. Everyone is just excited to be here.”

Richard Hale, Managing Director of Horizon Landscapes adds, “This was a stunning project to work on.  It was an honour to be involved in creating the first biophilic school and for the importance of the outside to be truly recognised as comparable with the inside of the building. The project has been a huge success and well-received. We have worked with Green-tech for many years and as ever they supplied what we needed, when we needed it. They are our go-to for all soft landscaping materials”.

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Origin create a buzz at SALTEX 2022

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Origin create a buzz at SALTEX 2022: The Origin Amenity Solutions (OAS) team has declared SALTEX a successful show. It ended on a high with their stand being announced as the Stand Award Winner by the GMA. They were voted the best in the large spaces category due to the excellence in stand design and customer experience.

Speaking about their experience OAS Marketing Director Kate Humes commented, “This was our first major show under the new marketing stewardship, and we were delighted with how it went. There was an impressive turn out with high profile visitors and exhibitors old and new.  The Origin Amenity Solutions stand was buzzing from the minute the doors opened. It was well organised and provided an ideal platform to catch up with customers, suppliers, and industry friends. Winning the Best Stand was the icing on the cake.  A lot of work goes into designing and building a stand of this scale and it was nice to be recognised for the team’s efforts.”

Origin create a buzz at SALTEX 2022

Origin create a buzz at SALTEX 2022

Origin Amenity Solutions combines four major industry brands – Headland Amenity, Rigby Taylor, Symbio and Turfkeeper. The group was established just over a year ago and their impressive presence at SALTEX demonstrates their commitment to the industry and positions them as a leading force in amenity and grounds management.

The stand was a hive of activity with live demonstrations of the Beacon application, the newest feature of the digital Turfkeeper platform offering push-notifications direct to mobile devices.  One visitor commented, “This is a fantastic new feature. Just what I needed.  It means I can keep my eyes on the jobs and my teams workload while I’m away from my desk. Simple but brilliant.”

The new Tiny Pro X robotic line marker made its debut appearance at the show and was incredibly well received.  Kate continues, “there was so much interest in the GPS Tiny Mobile Robots range and particularly the most recently launched robot, the Tiny Pro X.  We actually sold three machines on the stand which was cause for celebration.”

Elsewhere on the stand Dr Deidre Charleston profiled Symbio’s compost tea packages that are specially formulated using Symbio’s composting microbial technology. Many visitors to the OAS stand viewed the microbes in HD highlighting the types of microbes present after different brewing lengths.

Not just restricted to their stand, Research & Development Director Geoff Fenn and Angus Finlayson, OAS Turf Trials Research Manager took to the seminar area to explain about the Origin’s £1m Turf Science & Technology Centre and the importance of research in the amenity industry. It was well received, and the audience learnt about the variables to consider when conducting trials, the trial process itself, and how the team ensure all trials are completely unbiased.

The OAS team came out in force to support the GMA Awards. They sponsored the Young Grounds Person Of The Year category and  Origin Amenity Solutions Commercial Director Andy Russell presented to the worthy winner Dylan Thompson of Doncaster Rovers FC.

Andy Russell adds, “We were delighted to support the industry and the GMA.  Saltex is always a good event for networking, catching up with customers and launching new products. We had a lot of visitors to the stand, some great meetings, and some interesting leads. Overall it was a valued and worthwhile event for us.”

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Learn how to create perfect surfaces

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Learn how to create perfect surfaces: The Grounds Management Association (GMA) has revealed a spectacular seminar lineup as part of the SALTEX 2022 Learning LIVE Programme designed to help grounds people to create the best playing surfaces across a range of sports and settings.

Following on from the Lionness’ success in the Euros, and with the Rugby League World Cup and the first ever winter Football World Cup coming up, what better time to find out how the surfaces that make such events possible are created.

Learn how to create perfect surfaces

Learn how to create perfect surfaces

There’s something for most sports surfaces from some of the best in the business. For rugby, Catherine Hall (Premiership Rugby), Dr David James (Labosport) and Dan Prest (GMA) talk about raising Premiership Rugby pitch standards. For cricket, Gary Barwell (Edgbaston Stadium), Karl McDermott (Lord’s) and Steve Birks (Nottinghamshire CCC) discuss how new cricket formats impact on the modern-day grounds manager. Tennis is covered off by Neil Stubley (Wimbledon) who presents the All England Tennis and Croquet Club’s court expansion project.

But all top level surfaces start somewhere – at grassroots level – and Rob Sullivan presents the Football Foundation’s strategic ambitions to improve grass pitch quality and Chris Smith tackles the funding process to improve pitches. Perhaps there’s a role for hybrid pitches in the community – Dr Richard Earl (TGMS) reveals data findings from the Sport England hybrid pitch pilot for community use in London’s Regents Park.

Those in the education sector will no doubt be interested to hear how Whitgift School’s recent hybrid pitch installation was the first in the independent school sector and panelists Daniel Ratling (Whitgift School), Dr Richard Earl (TGMS) and D James Welsh (Whitehorse Contractors) session look at the rationale, the design/planning process, the construction, the project outcomes and the ongoing maintenance and renovation of the project.

Geoff Webb, CEO of the GMA, says: “So many visitors to SALTEX work in grounds maintenance and this series of seminars provides relevant, invaluable information whatever the playing surface they work on from speakers and panelists with a wealth of experience and solutions to real-time projects. Anybody wanting to stay ahead of the game in the grounds care industry will benefit from the learning and connections they can make whilst at SALTEX. We are grateful to all those industry experts and leaders that are taking time out to speak at Learning LIVE and support those working hard across the industry to make sport possible across the UK.”

The SALTEX 2022 Learning LIVE schedule this year has been extended to over 30 sessions, they are free to attend across the two days of the show on 2-3 November and contribute to CPD-accreditation. More information can be found on the event’s website at www.saltex.org.uk/learning-live. Free visitor registration is now open at saltex.org.uk / register here.

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Create pitch perfect sports fields with Attraxor®

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Create pitch perfect sports fields with Attraxor®: High quality, well-maintained sports pitches are essential to pupils’ sporting successes and achievements. The BASF product Attraxor® is a plant growth regulator containing the active substance prohexadione, that can be used to regulate growth of all managed sports turf, helping to create fields and pitches that are easier to maintain and have improved playability.

Prohexadione inhibits the Gibberellic acid pathway, which results in a reduction of turf height and turf biomass by up to 70%. Turf root formation and sward density is enhanced, with positive effects on the play, while turf colour and quality are maintained, promoting turf that doesn’t just look healthy, but is healthy.

Create pitch perfect sports fields with Attraxor®

Create pitch perfect sports fields with Attraxor®

In addition, due to its unique effects on seed head production, Attraxor® is also used as a Poa annua management tool.

Acting within four hours of application, Attraxor® delivers great turf quality and appearance, improves sward density and playability and enables better labour efficiency – all essential for the maintenance of high-quality pitches. Another labour and time-saving benefit is that Attraxor® can be mixed with fertilisers, adjuvants and stimulants, depending upon the need, and even contains a water conditioner for easier application.

Recent trials in Germany indicated another exciting Attraxor® feature. Functional areas treated in winter showed significantly less Microdochium nivale infection (-78%), compared to untreated areas thanks to a physiological processes described as the Apogee effect. Prohexadione causes a change of plant cell structures including thickening of plant cell walls, therefore, turf plants which are susceptible to M. nivale in winter, create a physical barrier which helps to withstand fungal infections. The broad temperature range of Attraxor® activity (starting at 7°C) is a perfect fit for late applications to optimise the IPM potential of this powerful active ingredient. This is hugely beneficial to help avoid a costly spring refurbishment programme.

For further product information including warning phrases and symbols refer to https://www.pestcontrol.basf.co.uk/en/Products/Product-innovation/Turf/

Attraxor® contains prohexadione calcium. Attraxor is a registered trademark of BASF. © BASF 2022. All rights reserved.

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