August 19, 2024
Just like any natural lawn, to get the best from it in terms of appearance and performance, you need to look after it. But when a lawn such as a bowls lawn has a sporting purpose, it requires a little more care and consideration to ensure it doesn’t impede your game.
In this article, we discuss the steps to maintaining your bowling turf and enjoying a beautiful lawn that will make your opponents green with envy!
Outdoors British Bowls tends to start at the end of April, weather permitting! Ideally, you want to begin prepping your bowls lawn at the end of March, giving yourself a whole month to tend to it.
Before we dive into each step, make sure the air temperature is warm, around 10 degrees. If it’s snowing or frosty, give it some time, as you’ll simply stress out your turf. Warmer weather will encourage your turf to grow a thick and healthy sward.
If you master anything when it comes to maintaining your bowls lawn, it’s how to mow it correctly! Preferably, you want a specific mower designed for bowls turf with various cutting blades to meet your requirements.
An average bowls lawn is 5mm in height; this provides a thick, neat and even surface for bowls to roll along easily. To achieve this without stressing your turf, introduce a phased mowing routine, lowering the cut height each time. For example, if you mow once a week, reduce the height by 1.5mm: 9.5mm, 8mm, 6.5mm and finally, 5mm. This will continue encouraging your grass to grow, increasing its strength and resilience.
However, this can vary depending on weather conditions—this is the UK, after all! If you mow your lawn more than once a week, you can lower your mowing height by 0.5mm for a more gradual process. At the end of the season, increase the height back to 8mm to protect your bowls turf during the winter.
Aeration allows sufficient water and airflow within the soil to help your turf’s roots breathe and develop healthy grass blades. Some mowers may have an aeration tool attached, or you can purchase one separately. Aim to aerate your bowls lawn every month during the off-season and alternate with scarifying during the playing season.
Scarifying helps clear your bowls lawn of thatch and dead grass to leave a smooth playing surface. It also makes shallow cuts into the soil, allowing more water and oxygen to reach the roots. If you’ve applied a spring/summer fertiliser, allow it to soak in fully before scarifying, and avoid scarifying when the soil is dry, as this can cause further damage.
Verti-cutting is the vertical cutting of your grass. It helps create that sharp, dead-straight line that is so satisfying to see. Most scarifying machines will have a verti-cutter, and you should do this every two to three weeks during the season. Like scarifying, avoid vert-cutting when your soil is dry or stressed.
A specific spring/summer fertiliser applied in March will boost grass growth as spring arrives. Applying fertiliser to your bowls lawn at this time encourages a thicker, healthier, and faster regrowth of turf that will be strong enough to withstand the upcoming maintenance regime and an entire playing season.
If your bowls lawn has struggled over winter, overseeding may revive it. Overseeding bowling turf should be done in the spring to improve its quality. As our bowls lawn turf blog explains, Chewing or Slender Creeping Red Fescue and Browntop Bent grass seed are the ideal types of grass seed to enhance your bowls lawn.
Topsoil or top dressing offers multiple benefits to your bowls lawn. You don’t require much, just enough to protect any grass seed you’ve laid or to correct imperfections such as depressions and lawn disease scars. Apply your topsoil onto dry soil on a dry day – it will work its way into the soil and disappear from sight. It also helps prevent thatch buildup on your lawn and aids water drainage.
You’ll want to keep your bowls lawn hydrated, especially during the playing season. It’s recommended that you water your lawn every three days, but this is weather-dependent. The aim is to ensure the roots have regular access to water. So, you could also gently aerate the grass to allow water to reach them.
The best way to care for your bowling turf is by spotting problems before they become serious and putting preventive lawn care methods in place. Here are some of the troublesome turf issues you might spot on your lovely bowls lawn:
Water pooling – Water sitting on the surface of your bowls lawn could indicate that it wasn’t laid correctly. Try scattering a layer of topsoil to aid drainage or aerating the area to break up compacted soil.
Ant infestations – Ants love dry, well-drained turf, and you can spot an ant infestation by patches of dry soil that appear on the surface. Sweep the soil away to disturb them, or read our blog on removing ant hills if you’re still experiencing issues.
Keep animals off the lawn – A beautiful, prepped lawn is the dream for dogs, cats, and birds! It is the perfect spot for digging, relieving themselves, or scouting for worms. Try to pen it off before, during, and after your bowls season so animals cannot walk all over it.
Blunt blades – As we said, mowing is crucial to maintaining your bowls lawn. Before you begin, make sure your mower blades are clean and sharp. Blunt or rusted blades will damage your grass and stress your turf.
Weeding – Not only are weeds unsightly, but they can also become an unwanted obstacle during your bowls tournament! The quickest and easiest way to remove weeds without causing too much damage to the lawn is by hand.
Because bowls lawns deal with so much – footfall, extreme heat, shaded areas – you want a resilient tuft that can handle constant use whilst maintaining its gorgeous green colour. That’s why our Fine Textured Greens Turf is made of the best two grass seeds, fescue and browntop bent, to give you the perfect bowls lawn. To learn more, read our dedicated blog on the best bowling turf.
Our friendly and helpful customer services team is on hand to answer any turf queries you may have. Get in touch with us today or order your premium bowls turf right here.
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