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| HIR Horticultural Report - 19 Jan 2010 |
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The Plant Management Company
Horticultural Report 19.1.10
To The Body Corporates
Hope Island Resort
Turf Areas: Over the Christmas period/ New Year period we have had some much needed rainfall and what a difference this has made to turf and gardens alike. The turf is green again, something that we have not been used to of late and once again we have returned to a 7 day mowing rotation throughout the resort. This will keep our turf teams busy as the grass at moment seems to growing as fast as they can cut. The turf is currently being cut at the recommended (specification) height of 35mm and shall remain so while the current growing conditions remain.
As growing conditions have improved you may have noticed that the turf has flourished, thickened up and is starting to cover once dry bare patches. This has helped combat the influx of weed in the turf throughout the resort. You will see our greenkeeper out and about treating areas that are in need as unfortunately weeds too respond to improved growing conditions.
Garden Areas: During the last month we have had some good rainfall and the plants have benefitted most of all. Lush growth is present throughout the gardens once again. Our gardens teams have their hands full playing catch up after a couple of short weeks over the Christmas/ New Years break as well as the current explosion of growth. We would like to ask the residents to be patient as our teams work hard to get back on track with our usual garden rotations. We will continue to monitor the moisture levels in the gardens and report back to CMS with recommendation if the dry returns once again.
As previously discussed we have put additional projects on hold during the Christmas/ New Years break as we catch up on contract works. We will again commence as soon as we are up to date with our programmed works. The first project to re commence will be the rectification of trip hazards at The Lakes, as the first stage of topdressing was completed in December.
PMC are currently in the process of providing recommendations for suitable plant species to be used in future garden renovation works. We will also be recommending areas that are in need of improvement. This is a large job (considering the size of the resort) that requires careful planning and therefore will be an ongoing project.
Rainfall: After a poor start to December in terms of rainfall, the latter half of the month proved more fruitful. In total we received 161mm of much needed rain. This rainfall was well received and helped
brighten up the resorts turf and gardens throughout the festive period. January kicked off with the same patterns of good rainfall again aiding the current flush of growth although during the last couple of weeks we have not seen any significant falls. Let's hope that the heavens continue to be kind in the coming months. Rainfall for January so far 43mm.
As previously mentioned we are constantly monitoring soil moisture levels in the gardens and turf alike.
We will continue to provide CMS with recommendations for areas of concern. Two such areas are the
Magnolia Entry gardens and the Magnolia buggy path gardens which were recently renovated. As our
initial watering period for these areas has now expired we have recommended that the areas have
additional watering and with the assistance of CMS we have now again started watering. I'm sure all
would agree that we would not like to see your investment and our hard work in the gardens deteriorate
due to lack of water.
We hope that all had a very merry Christmas and have a successful and prosperous 2010.
We are looking forward to another successful year working to improve the horticultural presentation of Hope Island Resort.
We hope that this report has given you some insight into what has been going on in the gardens throughout the resort during the last month.
Thank you for involving us in this process, if we can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact myself, Chris Fairleigh or John Camilleri.
Regards,
Dale Godfrey
Area Supervisor - Gold Coast
The Plant Management Company
