Brand new shoots of grass – hooray!

  Although the long hot summer has been wonderful for use all, the grass across all our parks and commons have struggled. The last event on Clapham Common for the summer events season was SW4.  They left site on Friday 31st August but the contractors, Talbots, were on the event site from Thursday 30th August starting the reinstatement work.  They began with Grass Harrowing – this is where they scrape the surface lightly and break the top soil and any mud that has accumulated and lift up the grass.  Then they vertidrained the site– this is the process where a drum with tines on it that they roll over the ground and create series of holes in the ground.  This works to de-compact the ground and helps get air and water to the roots.  A few days later they came back and fertilised and disc-seeded.  This is a machine which has a blade the cuts a shallow channel which seed is pumped into and then a roller pushes the soil back over the top.  The majority of the event site was disc seeded 1 way and where there were areas of greater impact form summer events Talbots then went over these areas a further 2 times.   This process also leaves some seeds on the top of the ground and often where they have lifted the rollers to make a turn what is left in the pipes falls out onto the top of the ground.  These areas are evident by the clusters of birds.  The picture below is of the disc seeder on at work on Brockwell Park.   The...