Top dressing 22 October
l-
“You spread ten tons, what do you get?” In our case, with luck, an improved surface on lawn 2. The procedure is roughly as follows:
- Estimate the area to be covered (for a lawn this is about 1000 square yards) and the required depth of material -
the important thing is not to apply so much that the grass gets smothered and can’t grow through. This gives the volume of material. - Use the stated density of the material to work out the mass of material required (past experience puts this at a little under ten tons or 10000kg).
- Decide on how much mass constitutes a sensible barrowload (eight shovels worth) and from this calculate the number of barrowloads required.
- Plot an equally spaced grid to cover the area so that the number of cells in the grid is equal to the number of barrowloads required, and mark the centre of every other cell with a bisque.
- Dump a barrowload of material in the centre of each cell.
- Spread out the barrowloads evenly along each row and then out from each side to join the rows on either side (if this proves inadequate more material can be added between the rows, as shown in the photo).
- Pull the dragmat across the lawn in several directions to work the material evenly into the surface.
As expected, ten tons was more than enough. Some had already been applied to level off significant dips and a repaired sinkhole that had appeared between lawns 2 and 3, some was transferred to sacks and the rest left in situ covered with tarpaulins. Many thanks to all who helped, especially to George, Gill and Peter, who resembled a trio of shire horses pulling a harrow as they stolidly plodded back and forth with the dragmat, trailing a cloud of dust.
The pattern of heaps suggests, given our regular visitors, an alternative interpretation:
The Autumn Camp of the 2nd Btn, the Central Beds Rgt
(nickname The Moles, motto Semper Sub Terra).
Red tents for Officers, yellow for NCOs.
© Wrest Park Croquet Club
Club
Croquet
Wrest Park