What to do about hole 12/14

[pepe]

Aside from the buried trash that bubbles to the surface on hole 12, we need to come up with a good long term plan for these holes which, in my opinion, have turned into the main eyesore/trouble spot on the course.

It is encumbant upon us as a club to formulate and execute a plan of action in the interest of retaining this jewel of a golf course and not hope that the city will take pity on how heavily used it has been.

That said, my idea is to create new plantings of a certain shrub that already exists on the course. It's called the cotoneaster plant and it dominates the medium sized foliage on holes like 9 and 8. Look for it on hole 9 when you're walking down the path...it's all around you.

It is a very hardy plant, doesn't need much watering, and thrives in sandy soil. Best of all, it fares really well with disc golf and can take repeated hits and stompings. There is a cotoneaster next to the pin for hole 8 that is in fine shape despite its location.

Places where we should plant these:
-along the edge of the hill on 14. It will stabilize the hill, be nice on the eyes, and heck, they may prevent a few discs from flying into the 12 fairway or onto 11.
-lower down the hill where the thorny bushes used to be.
-along the short left side of the 12 fairway which has seen a plethora of new paths and erosion

Perhaps we can think about this more prior to the work parties?

Is there any way the city can provide us with mature plants?

We should address this issue before the september walk through regardless

[hrc333]

The city owes us some plants that we are suppose to receive in the fall.  We will be working with the city gardners in trying to find the right plants for what we need.

That being said, Peter is right about this area.  One of the things that we need to do is to get some branches on the hill side to the left of the hole 12 fairway.  These method worked will on hole 5.  If we put enough branches on this hill I think that will work for that section.  We also need to take what we did with the netting on part of the hill on 11 and continue doing that all the way back to near the c position.

[Tim]

You can take cuttings from Cotoneaster plants and it could even benefit the parent plant as a pruning (good city sell point for chopping off a few branches from an existing plant?).  Cuttings from an existing plant in the same area will be sure to work out since those plants were already doing well and it's just a clone.

Here's what I found on the web about em, either technique works.  

Softwood cuttings are prepared from soft, succulent, new growth of woody plants, just as it begins to harden (mature). Shoots are suitable for making softwood cuttings when they can be snapped easily when bent and when they still have a gradation of leaf size (oldest leaves are mature while newest leaves are still small). For most woody plants, this stage occurs in May, June, or July. The soft shoots are quite tender, and extra care must be taken to keep them from drying out. The extra effort pays off, because they root quickly.

Semi-hardwood cuttings are usually prepared from partially mature wood of the current season’s growth, just after a flush of growth. This type of cutting normally is made from mid-July to early fall. The wood is reasonably firm and the leaves of mature size. Many broadleaf evergreen shrubs and some conifers are propagated by this method.

here's the resource:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-8702.html

[ross]

Good ideas being generated here -- as Jeffery said we are supposed ot receive a consignment of plants this fall before the rains come which is the best time to plant. Many of these are drought and abuse-tolerant. Only one caveat -- the cottoneaster is considered an invasive/non-native plant by RPD and so they would not allow us to plant it.

[pepe]

Well phase 1 of the hole 14 work is complete. Many thanks to all that helped out on Saturday, especially Big O and Brown, who busted *( | )* with me on some significant earthworks.

The hillside should be significantly more stable now as a result.

Next phase is getting some plantings in there. It sucks we can't use cotoneaster since it really is teflon when it comes down to it. Watching people drive on 4 the other day, I noticed a disc came in at pretty high speed, hit the plant, and bounced right off with no damage done to the plant...if the Toyon, strawberry guava, or any of the other Cotoneaster similars can do that, I will be amazed.

Regardless, the city should understand that we have a vision for this area and are doing our best to implement it.

Hole 12 is looking better due to a herculean effort over there. I would say that it makes more sense to me to double the peeler core on the lower part of the new path and perhaps even forget about the upper part: it will only get undercut as we're seeing elsewhere. The lower portion will be effective as erosion control on its own...