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Ludlow Castle ‘smitten’ with Dennis FT610

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Ludlow Castle ‘smitten’ with Dennis FT610: After trying various mowers, Ludlow Castle Croquet Club has finally found the one it was looking for in the Dennis FT610 interchangeable cassette mower.

Beyond the tennis courts and bowling green, there is a large area of lawn known as the North Field.  It is the home of a small band of croquet enthusiasts and was formed six years ago.  It started with just two founding members, but the croquet club now has a thriving membership which seemed to increase sharply as a result of “Lockdown”.  It plays on two lawns.

Ludlow Castle ‘smitten’ with Dennis FT610

Ludlow Castle ‘smitten’ with Dennis FT610

The North Field was formerly used as grazing land and only recently was bought by the Bowls and Tennis Club to provide, on a part of the field, a permanent car park for the club.  The remaining area lay unused for two years before one of founder members of the croquet club, David Jones, suggested it be mown and croquet played on it.  He persuaded Bob Purcell to join him in this venture.  They took their own mowers to mow the rough grass.

Others soon joined to help; a member of the bowling club, David Davies, arranged for half of the field to be ploughed, harrowed and seeded – this is now known as Lawn 1 and is the flatter of the two lawns.  Another member of the bowling and croquet clubs, John Nash, worked on and improved a 24” cylinder mower that the bowling club had put on a pile of items that were to be discarded.  An enthusiastic mowing group then improved the lawn so much so that it led to the accusation that it was really a mowing club that occasionally played croquet.  Bob Purcell, who leads this group, certainly leaves no stone unturned when it comes to lawn maintenance, and there were many stones to remove after the ploughing and harrowing.

“As a group, we work very hard to ensure we have the best possible playing surface,” he said.  “Having the right mower is key and we’ve certainly tried a few over the year.  A generous grant from the Mid Counties Co-Op then allowed us to purchase a more up to date cylinder mower from a professional manufacturer, but we found that it just could not cut low enough, and it didn’t deal too well with our bumpy lawn.”

Whether it was borrowed, repaired, or bought, the club has long been searching for a mower that would help him to produce a fine surface for this much loved and quintessentially English game.

“Discussions continued among the members and we agreed to try out a 13-bladed cylinder mower; it was good but then Dennis came along.  A demonstration was quickly arranged and we saw a couple of mowers and the one that stood out for us was the 24” version of the FT cassette system.”

The Dennis FT610, along with other models in the FT series, has become the ‘must have’ piece of turf maintenance machinery at bowling clubs around the country. With a 24″ working width, the FT610 provides its user with comfort, flexibility and excellent performance. A true sense of control is obtained through the unique roller clutch drive for a smooth take-up and a variable clip rate helping to create the desired finish.

Available with five-bladed and ten-bladed cutting cylinders the machine can be matched to any situation and the interchangeable cassettes can be changed without the requirement of any tools. The range of 12 different cassettes mean that one machine can be used for several key maintenance tasks including scarifying, verticutting or brushing.

“We chose the FT610 over the FT510 purely because it has a larger working width, which helps us to mow the lawn quicker,” he said. “The ten-bladed cylinder provides a great finish, and we are currently cutting down to 7mm three days a week having started at 11mm. We have also ordered the verticutter cassette to help us get rid of the lateral growth, so I’m looking forward to using that.”

“I know it is a minor feature, but we all really appreciate how the FT610 starts first time every time – it is really quite remarkable. The mowing group also like the way the height of cut can be adjusted without using any tools, it is just a simple turn and a click adjustment. On our previous mowers it has always been difficult to adjust the cutting height which required the use of tools.

“I was particularly keen to use a British company, and I’m pleased we chose Dennis,” continued Bob. “In many ways we are smitten with Dennis.  The next stage is to begin the process to achieve a truly level surface”

For further information or a no obligation demonstration, please contact Dennis 01332 824 777 or visit www.dennisuk.com

For more news, reviews and insightful views, you can follow Dennis on Twitter and Instagram @DennisMowers and like the company’s Facebook page – www.facebook.com/DennisMowersUK.You can also view the latest Dennis videos by visiting www.youtube.com/DennisMowers

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Win big with the Great British Garden Festival

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Win big with the Great British Garden Festival: If you’re visiting RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year, The Great British Garden Festival has an incredible prize on offer! Simply sign up to join as a member while you’re at the show and you will automatically be entered into a draw to win £1,000 worth of garden products kindly supplied by their Partners! 

Membership costs just £10 and gets you all sorts of exclusive access to savings on products as well as entry into gardens and events all year round.

Win big with the Great British Garden Festival

Win big with the Great British Garden Festival

Love plants? Love gardening? Love days out? The Great British Garden Festival is for you! Join as a member and save on all things gardening!

With the help of fellow green fingered friends, The Great British Garden Festival has created a searchable hub for you to find out about all of the amazing gardens and events that are right on your doorstep! All around the nation there are thousands of beautiful gardens, hidden gems and incredible events. All you need to do is check The Great British Garden Festival website to see thousands of places to go and products that you can save on.

The Great British Garden Festival is proud to have some amazing ambassadors that advocate their mission to support gardeners like you. With support from the RHS, Kew, Historic England, Historic Houses, Visit Britain and the National Garden Scheme why not get behind the Festival too? Their Ambassadors personify the very best in their respective fields, coming from all backgrounds and working lives, they represent the diverse nature of the nation’s love for gardens and gardening including famous faces from TV like Gemma Collins, Lee Burkhill, Flo Headlam, Mark Lane and Simon Lycett.

Enthusiasm continues to flood in from all over and their list of Partners is growing daily, adding new places that you can visit and new products that you can save on. With so many different offers available, there really is something for everyone. Encourage each other to get out and about and enjoy the green spaces.

Let’s make the world a little greener together!

Visit the Great British Garden Festival website at www.GreatBritishGardenFestival.org.uk to find out more and sign up to claim your deals!

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Scotscraig GC future proofs with Wiedenmann

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Scotscraig GC future proofs with Wiedenmann: A golf club with a 205-year-old history has bought a powerful Wiedenmann blower to save significantly on time and be ready for any adverse weather conditions.

Scotscraig at Tayport, Fife, founded in 1817, is 13th on the list of earliest golf clubs. Its amateur gold medal competition, which started the same year, is still going strong, and lays claim to being the world’s oldest.

Scotscraig GC future proofs with Wiedenmann

Scotscraig GC future proofs with Wiedenmann

Near neighbour to both the Old Course, St Andrews, and Carnoustie Golf Links, Scotscraig’s design was influenced originally by Old Tom Morris, and later by James Braid. It is a championship course in a traditional loop. Uniquely, it is part links, part heathland and part parkland in equal measure, presenting a recurring challenge to golfers, and its greenkeeping team, alike.

Course Manager, Darren McKenna, joined the club in July 21, as deputy course manager, became acting course manager in October 21 and in February 22, his role in charge was confirmed.

In March, he took delivery of a Mega Twister from Wiedenmann UK’s Scottish dealer, Fairways GM at Kinross.

“With an immediate requirement for a blower, I went straight for a Wiedenmann because of reliability and efficiency. Previously as course manager at Camperdown (Dundee), we had owned a Wiedenmann Whisper Twister, then later upgraded to a Mega Twister, so it is kit I know well, and its ability is proven,” began Darren.

“Last autumn and winter much debris here was collected by hand, and it took forever. Successive storms added back-breaking work for the team. With the Mega Twister, the clear-up from storms will be so much easier. This machine will save time and take the strain, powerful enough to move debris deep into the rough, or in instances when we need to gather, it can be guided into manageable places to be collected.”

The Mega Twister has 390 m³ per minute worth of blow and can either be trailed or front mounted. Its swivel action is revolutionary, 230° to be precise, and has a patented “whisper” engine to keep noise to a minimum.

“It’s one of those machines that has a use every day but come the autumn or extreme weather it will be out extensively, that’s its busy time,” continued Darren.

“Through the season, the Mega Blower will be principally for presentation and quality; it works well tidying dried fairway divots, blowing them off, or, if it has been wet, and dead grass has fallen from the fairway mowers, this can be blown, too. Our fairways are narrow but undulating. They are block cut so we drive up the light shade turn around and come down the dark line. It is simple, no need to get out the cab. The blower nozzle oscillates in whatever direction is needed, and can go up and down, while the support wheels are kind to the turf.”

Fortunately for Darren, and his five-person team, the links element of the site means not all Scotscraig’s fairways are tree-lined, but they still have a fair share. Almost without exception, the on-course trees are Scots pine with only a handful deciduous trees. So, from Autumn onwards, a key task is to tidy fallen needles.

“At some point you do need to collect needles, but for the most part they can be dealt with efficiently by blowing them to the edges and that’s precisely why we needed the extreme power of the Mega Twister,” concluded Darren.

Scotscraigs has two other Wiedenmann pieces in their fleet, a double width Terra Brush and a Terra Spike GXi8 HD.

Mike Lindsay, Fairways GM, area sales manager,who delivered the blower said:

“A Mega Twister gives infinite possibilities. The obvious uses are for leaf and debris clearance, but it is the perfect wing man for so many other machines and operations.

“Scotscraig – and virtually every east coast Scottish course – was impacted by Storms Arwen, Barra, Malik and Dudley this past winter. Going forward, a Mega Twister is the perfect way to future proof.”

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Fixed fountain easy with Otterbine

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Fixed fountain easy with Otterbine: Turning a floating fountain into a cost-effective fixed fountain is easy with Otterbine.

For those who have a floating fountain from Otterbine’s C3 range – including all of the decorative patterns and Fractional series – all you need to do is remove the float from the fountain and attach the three-legged stand from the fixed system to anchor the fountain to the bottom of the pond basin. And voila, you have a fixed fountain.

Fixed fountain easy with Otterbine

Fixed fountain easy with Otterbine

This in turn removes the back float from the floating fountain (or, if you were going for a bespoke fountain fixture, the piping and valves) from sight for an aesthetically pleasing result.

Simon Powell, business development manager at Otterbine, says: “This simple system provides a solution to the aesthetic problem of having some of the fountain’s parts visible, as can be the case with floating fountains. This is a cost-effective, off-the-shelf and simple to install solution in comparison to the alternative which is a bespoke build.”

Each stand comes assembled with adjustable legs that can be positioned at different heights to accommodate sloping bottoms of varying depths between 22 to 30 inches, while the rubber feet can be removed for earth bottoms.

Made from corrosion-resistant and durable marine-grade stainless steel, the pump chamber fits flush with the surface and comes with power control centre cable with quick disconnect for ease of installation. They are backed by a robust five-year warranty and can be fitted with Otterbine’s Fountain Glo™ RGBW light systems to enhance the fountain’s display and give rich vibrant light through a variety of coloured displays and sequences at night.

To find out more about the Otterbine range of aerators and fountains, contact Otterbine’s UK distributor Reesink Turfcare on 01480 226800, email info@reesinkturfcare.co.uk or visit reesinkturfcare.co.uk. 

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Battery power with no limits

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Battery power with no limits: Outdoor power equipment specialist EGO has launched a new battery size and charging options to give gardening, landscaping and grounds care specialists increased run-time and no limits when it comes to battery power.

Addressing a common concern with battery power, EGO has launched its CHU6000 Professional Multi-Port Charging Case (RRP £519.00) which is able to charge any combination of up to six EGO portable batteries at the same time. Working with the industry’s fastest charger, the new CHV1600E 1600W Multi-Port Charger (RRP £259.00), a typical 60Ah setup will charge in just three hours meaning users can comfortably work continuously throughout the day.

Battery power with no limits

Battery power with no limits

With a wheeled case for easy loading and unloading from the van, EGO’s Multi-Port Charging Case uses an intelligent power management system that replenishes batteries with the lowest level of charge first, then brings all the batteries up to full charge at the same rate.

Also, part of the EGO Professional range, the new 12Ah BA6720T battery (RRP £529.00) is now the largest in its range and increases run time by up to 20 per cent across all EGO products. With EGO’s 12Ah battery, users can mow up to 1900sqm (almost 8 tennis courts) on a single charge, while offering up to 6 hours of run time for selected hedge trimmers and line trimmers.

Joining six smaller sized batteries in the range, the battery is interchangeable with all EGO tools, and uses patented 56V ARC Lithium™ technology to provide the best balance between required performance and usable power. It also makes use of EGO’s KeepCool™ technology to keep the temperature of battery cells lower for longer, preventing overheating. Internal microprocessors and software control every cell for delivery of optimal power, performance, and runtime.

Vince Brauns, European Product Manager at EGO, said: “Our new 12Ah battery and multiport charger combine to resolve one of the biggest barriers to battery-powered tool uptake in the professional market – battery capacity and speed of charging. With the ability to provide optimum power and performance too, our continual innovation in battery technology mean it is becoming virtually impossible for many professionals to justify their use of petrol-powered tools”

For more information, visit www.egopowerplus.co.uk.

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