Turf and Lawn News 

It is a quintessential British mammal and has featured in English Literature through the centuries - but it is very rarely seen.

Now a nationwide survey is to be carried out in an attempt to find out just how many moles there are

More than 2,000 members of PTES, a conservation charity, have already taken part and recorded 16,000 molehills for the survey which will run until September. But it hopes to recruit at least 10,000 individuals to map molehills in gardens and the surrounding countryside across the UK, so a more detailed picture of the elusive creature's distribution can be built up.

Jill Nelson, Chief Executive Officer of PTES, said: "Molehills are among the easiest wildlife signs to recognise and we are going to take advantage of that by asking members of the public to join our survey.

"At present seeing a molehill in an area is the only reliable means we have of recording the presence of moles, as they are so rarely seen. So mapping molehills will tell us whether at least one mole is present in a particular place.

"By gathering this information from surveyors across the UK we will be able to produce a distribution map of moles and so judge whether there are areas where they are scarce."

Moles (Talpa europea), mentioned by Shakespeare in Hamlet and immortalised by Kenneth Grahame in Wind in the Willows, live almost exclusively underground and although is thought to be one of the most common mammals there is very little basic information about its numbers.

With continuing changes to the countryside, fragmentation of its habitat and different farming practices, PTES hopes to establish whether the mole is flourishing or whether it needs help to survive.

For more information about the MoleWatch campaign and to record molehill sightings, visit http://www.molewatch.org.uk/

Mole facts

* Common names: Mole, moldwarp, want, taupe; famh (Scottish Gaelic); gwadd, twrch daear (Welsh)

* Size: Approximately 120mm in length and weighing in at 110g

* Distinguishing features: Prominent features are broad, spade-like forelimbs with long, sturdy claws, pink fleshy snout and short tail. No external ear shows, tiny eyes are hidden in fur. They have an elongated cylindrical body with uniformly short, usually black, fur

* Habitat: Highly adaptable; can thrive wherever soil is deep enough for tunnelling, especially in deciduous woodland pastures and arable land

* Diet: Soil invertebrates, especially earthworms and insect larvae, collected in the tunnel or from tunnel walls. An adult mole consumes almost two thirds of its body weight each day

* Habits: Male moles are called boars and females sows. Adults alternate 3-4 hour bursts of activity with similar periods of rest. Breeding males may leave their nests for days at a time, sleeping at irregular intervals in the tunnel system. Lactating females return to their nests 4 to 6 times in 24 hours

* Breeding: A litter of 3-4 young is born in an underground nest in the spring. Newborns are naked and weigh about 3.5g. They wean and start leaving the nest at 4-5 weeks, finally dispersing above ground at 5-6 weeks. Juveniles reach adulthood in about 3 months and become sexually mature in the spring following their birth.

* Distribution: Throughout mainland Britain and on the islands of Skye, Mull, Anglesey, Wight, Alderney and Jersey wherever habitat is suitable. Absent from Ireland. Moles are also found in North America, Europe and Asia

* Conservation status: No longer hunted for skins, but still widely persecuted because of their perceived pest status

* If a mole does not find food within 12 hours, it will die.

* Its saliva contains toxins which paralyse earthworms, allowing them to store their still-living prey in specially constructed underground 'larders'.

* Moles are considered by some farmers to be agricultural pests because molehills can reduce the productivity of pasture.

* Gardeners hate them because of the damage they can inflict on lawns.

* But moles are actually the gardener's friend - eating potentially harmful insect larvae like leatherjackets, cockchafers and carrot flies, while their tunnels help drain and aerate heavy soils.

* Moles rarely live permanently in gardens without large lawns or orchards but they can be found in gardens on the edge of built-up areas, where the enriched soil offers visiting moles a plentiful source of earthworms.

There is a new job opportunity at Celebrity Cruises: groundsman. The perfect candidate must be willing to perform his or her duties while traveling the world aboard a beautifully appointed ocean liner. The successful candidate also must be a dedicated horticulturist who possesses an unmistakable enthusiasm for the unexpected, as the greens will be miles out at sea.

When Celebrity Solstice launches in December, holiday makers will find that the grass really is greener on a Celebrity Cruises cruise. The ship will present an industry first on the top deck of the ship: real, growing grass, set in an innovative new country club environment known as "The Lawn Club."

The half-acre Lawn Club on Celebrity Solstice will invite guests to enjoy croquet, practice their putting, picnic with a basket of wine and cheese, or simply feel the grass between their toes, while sailing the oceans of the world. "We want our guests to experience the unexpected, like the thrill of sinking a putt on a freshly manicured lawn in the middle of the ocean," said Dan Hanrahan, President and CEO of Celebrity Cruises.

"Everything about the Celebrity Cruises brand is authentic," said Richard D. Fain, Chairman of Celebrity Cruises. "Our vision for a completely genuine experience demanded nothing less than real grass, and we sought out the right innovation to make that vision a reality."

Achieving that reality was no easy task. Celebrity worked with design firm Wilson Butler Architects to design the entire club area, then engaged a team of landscape architects and irrigation specialists along with turf and soil scientists at the University of Florida. Together, they conducted extensive research and tested a variety of grasses to determine which can withstand the winds, sun, shade and temperature variations that will affect the grass and soil as the ship sails in the Caribbean this winter. Other considerations included the ability of the grass to tolerate foot traffic, irrigation and day-to-day care and maintenance of the grass. Even the weight of the grass and soil had to be considered, as well as the water they absorb from the atmosphere and from irrigation.

Facts about The Lawn Club on Celebrity Solstice
  -- At 2,130 square meters The Lawn Club is just over half an acre in size.

 The Lawn Club is:
    -- 1.7 times larger than an Olympic-size swimming pool, which is 1,250 sq.
     meters
  -- The equivalent of 8.2 tennis courts (these are 260 sq. meters each)
  -- 2.4 times the size of Centre Court at England's Wimbledon Lawn & Tennis
     Club, which is 902 sq. meters
  -- One-third the size of a football field, which is 6,500 sq.
     meters

LAWN experts are divided over a trial planting of the much-maligned couch grass on the grounds of Parliament House in Canberra.

The nation's capital is in the throes of stage 3 water restrictions and the 9.6 hectares of grasses that currently grow around and on top of the building have become a water-leaching embarrassment in a time of widespread drought.

So beds of drought-resistant, warm-climate couch grass are being trialled in the north-east and north-west corner lawns.

The only catch is that couch grass tends to turn a straw or brown colour in winter, though it does not die off.

It is also a spreading — rather than a clumping — grass, and if left alone can become unsightly, encroaching on garden beds and concrete.

James Davy, chief executive of Canberra lawn supplier Canturf, which has grown turf for Parliament House, said couch was becoming more popular for public lawns and bowling greens, but its browning in winter was a drawback. He wants Parliament to keep its current grass species — tall fescue, perennial ryegrass and Kentucky bluegrass — and explore water recycling options.

"It's probably the most prestigious lawn in Australia and I'd like to see it stay green," Mr Davy said. "If they use a cool season grass (such as) fescue or bluegrass or ryegrass, you'd have a green lawn right through the year."

But Peter van Leeuwen, of HG Turf, which supplies the MCG surface and the St Kilda foreshore, said if Parliament was "looking to be responsible and looking to put in drought-tolerant grass, it's the right way to move".

He said couch, once it was established, required little or no water. John Cotter, chairman of the Turf Producers Association of Victoria, said couch in Canberra would probably lose its colour in late May and green up again in September.

But he said a dull-coloured lawn could be avoided by planting a fine ryegrass among the couch annually. "And once the couch starts to grow again in spring, you spray out the ryegrass and are left with the drought-resistant couch for summer."

David Kenny, acting secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services, said water use for Parliament House and its gardens had been slashed by 40% in the past year "and we want to see if we can reduce the need for water even further".

He said two hectares of the lawn were no longer watered and had been allowed to die. The trial would test the extent of lawn discolouration. "We might well decide that that was something acceptable in terms of having grass that requires less water."

Mr Kenny said synthetic grass had been mentioned in a Senate estimates committee discussion about a year ago but the idea had not progressed. "We haven't considered it," he said.

Cornell researchers have identified the herbicide as an amino acid called meta-tyrosine, or m-tyrosine, that these lawn turf grasses exude from their roots in large amounts. This amino acid is a close relative of para-tyrosine (p-tyrosine), one of the 20 common amino acids that form proteins.

Reporting on the discovery in of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, Frank Schroeder, the paper's senior author and an assistant scientist at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research on Cornell's campus, said, "We at first didn't believe m-tyrosine had anything to do with the observed herbicidal activity, but then we tested it and found it to be extremely toxic to plants but not toxic to fungi, mammals or bacteria."

Co-author Cecile Bertin, made the initial discovery that fescue grasses inhibit plants from growing around them.

While m-tyrosine itself is too water soluble to be applied directly as a herbicide, this research may lead to development of new varieties of fescue lawn turf grasses that suppress weeds more effectively, which could reduce the need for synthetic herbicides, said Schroeder. By increasing our understanding of basic plant biology, the discovery of m-tyrosine's herbicidal properties could also help researchers discover more sustainable ways to control weeds or completely new herbicides, Schroeder added.

He and his colleagues are now conducting experiments to understand how m-tyrosine works as a plant killer. Plants depend on the production of large amounts of another common amino acid, phenylalanine, which is essential for the biosynthesis of wood, cell walls and lignin.

"Phenylalanine, m-tyrosine and p-tyrosine are structurally all very similar," said Schroeder. "Because of this similarity, we think that m-tyrosine might simulate high concentrations of phenylalanine, which would normally provide negative feedback for phenylalanine biosynthesis" and, thereby, suppress plant growth.

Schroeder and colleagues are also trying to understand why fescue lawn turf grasses do not succumb to the toxin themselves. They found that when phenylalanine was added to plants dying from m-tyrosine exposure, they recovered. As a result, the researchers suspect that these fescue varieties may overproduce phenylalanine to save themselves from their own toxin.

People have not recognized how effective some fescue varieties are at suppressing weeds because m-tyrosine production appears to be highly dependent on environmental conditions, Schroeder said, which is another area that the researchers are currently investigating.

It could be the toughest lawn-mowing job ever. The 100-foot walls of the National Theatre have been covered in grass. And the giant lawn on two sides of the South Bank building has had commuters doing a double take as they cross Waterloo Bridge.

The £50,000 project is the brainchild of artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey, who coated the concrete walls in clay and then planted millions of seeds. Maintenance workers water the 750 square metre grass carpet with giant sprinklers from the top of the building.

Ackroyd and Harvey, both 47, have been making grass art installations since the early Nineties and say it is a reminder of fields in the midst of the city.

The grass will stay on the side of the Lyttelton flytower for six weeks.

Article courtesy of the Evening Standard

An autumn 2006 survey has revealed that leatherjacket numbers are again high and lawn owners, particularly in the south of the country, should assess the risk of damage by leatherjackets and take action if necessary.

Although average leatherjacket numbers are down on 2005 levels at 97.1 per m2 they are still significantly higher than the long term average of 69.7 for all survey sites in the period 1992-2006.  Regionally, average numbers of leatherjackets have fallen in the Midlands and north but in the southern region they are 28% higher than in 2005 and the highest since 2001.

Adequate soil moisture in the autumn is critical for the survival of cranefly eggs and newly hatched leatherjacket larvae.  All counties experienced heavier than average rainfall in late August, and apart from a warm dry week ending 12 September 2006, the weather in autumn 2006 has been conducive to egg and young larvae survival.

"We have been routinely monitoring leatherjacket numbers, via an independent organisation, since 1992," explains Andy Cawley, Sales and Marketing Manager, Dow AgroServices.

"Monitoring helps groundsmen and lawn owners plan control measures against leatherjacket damage.  It certainly helped alert them in 2006 when 2005 survey figures revealed exceptionally high numbers of leatherjackets in the soil."

As a nation of gardeners, it is no surprise that we have a special love of lawns. A survey last year by PlantforLife, a campaign group set up by the country's main horticultural firms, found that new-mown grass was the favourite smell of summer - ahead of barbecues and roses. A lawn seems as British as warm beer and curly sandwiches, evoking a raft of pleasant images. Size doesn't matter. It could be a neat patch of green in a suburban front garden, or a wide sweep of grassy carpet in a grand country house. Or maybe some other iconic turf, such as our parks, bowling greens and Wimbledon.

Is there an alternative to the lawn? Decking? Concrete slabs? Such things work well in a small garden with heavy shade. Replacing grass with a solid surface means that precious outdoor space is there for year-round use. Turn it over to turf and it becomes out of bounds when wet.

The turf-out-the-grass approach, however, has its problems. According to Friends of the Earth, one reason for drought in urban parts of the south-east is too much concrete on the ground. When it does rain, the earth can't absorb significant amounts of water, which instead is channelled off into drains. In times of heavy rainfall, this leads to flash flooding of the sewers - as seen in London in 2004, when tonnes of untreated waste were washed into the Thames.

And there are many positive things to be said for the lawn, apart from it being a pleasant place to slob out on a sunny day. Providing you avoid feeding it chemical fertilisers and weedkillers, it's great as a habitat for insects. "Lawns create an area for worms in the soil and all sorts of creepy-crawlies," says Morag Shuaib of the Wildlife Trusts. "This in turn makes a source of food for birds such as blackbirds and thrushes."

Contrary to what sprinkler man might tell you, you do not need to water your lawn, either. It might turn brown during prolonged dry periods, but it'll come back with autumn rains. If you want to have a go at keeping it green, drought-tolerant turf containing RTF is now available.

Adjusting the mower to cut the grass longer will help, too. About 5cm is ideal. This helps the turf maintain its strength, and the roots grow deeper, where there is more moisture. Wildlife will like it too, says Shuaib.

There are alternatives to a grassy lawn, such as one made of camomile, clover or thyme, but as anyone who has ever tried it will tell you, they're nice to look at but won't tolerate much wear and tear.

Another alternative is the meadow - and very fashionable, as visitors to the Chelsea Flower Show will confirm. A meadow sounds rather grand, but think of it as basically a patch of grass left to its own devices. Even so, with the various maintenance regimes depending on what you want to grow, people tend to get put off. The basic meadow recipe is, however, simple: a close cut once a year at the end of summer, then leave it for the rest of the year to do its own thing. Last year in my garden we let a patch of grass grow wild for summer, and in that one season two types of orchid appeared. One golden rule is never to add nutrients; this is why you must always rake off the debris after you have cut the grass.

What about cutting the grass if a meadow doesn't take your fancy? The masochist's option, of course, is to push around a manual lawnmower, which is just about acceptable in a small space. Other alternatives to a petrol machine are electric versions or those that run on rechargeable batteries. Some cut the grass so fine that you can leave it where it is, to rot down quickly and act as natural fertiliser.

According to that survey last year, we spend nearly £400m a year on seed and other lawn-related paraphernalia. Why? For many gardeners and non-gardeners alike, there is simply no alternative to this soft, inviting patch of green outdoors. And with the tantalising prospect of warm summer weather, can you really blame them?

Courtesy of Money Guardian

RTF turf was this week awarded the Waterwise Marque in recognition of its ability to withstand long periods of drought without the need to use a sprinkler.  A selected handful of Waterwise Marques are awarded each year to the products which best enhance water efficiency or reduce water wastage. 

Environment Minister, Ian Pearson says, "I welcome the Waterwise Marque which will raise the profile of water efficiency, help the consumer to make informed choices in product selection, and reward those companies who are taking a lead in water saving.  It is good for the environment and good for consumers."

"RTF turf (rhizomatous tall fescue) is a great new development for lawn owners," says RTF grower Tim Fell, Managing Director of Tillers Turf and Turfshop.  "Not only does it survive droughts because of its deep roots, it also repairs itself by filling in spaces with new growth."

"Tall fescues are suitable for lawns because they have a deep green colour," exlains Fell.  "They are very hard wearing, and can withstand long periods of drought.  They have a root system that can go down an incredible 1.5 metres into the soil!"  This helps them search for water deep down in the earth.

Waterwise is an independent, not for profit organisation that receives funding from the UK water industry and from sponsorship and consultancy work.  In England, it sits on the Environment Minister‘s Water Saving Group alongside the water industry and regulators.

Since the River Susquehanna started melting last week, people in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, have had huge chunks of ice deposited on their lawns. While mother nature’s natural artwork may seem imposing to the rest of us, Sandy Rittle has seen it all before. When your garden leads down to the river each season brings a new surprise.

Sandy:
“I would never want to live anywhere else. I mean, you know, you never really know what’s going to happen next, but that kind of makes life interesting.”

And the ice is nice compared to last summer’s flood. Sandy‘s lawn was more like a boating lake.

You won’t hear any complaints, Sandy says that’s how it is on Susquehanna Street. She says if we get sunny days from now on, these huge chunks of ice should be gone in about three weeks.