Making History

I got my first experience in mowing english lawns and boy it didn't dissapoint.  My first mowing job was helping to mow the very important canal borders.  They are one of the first views visitors get when entering the gardens.  The picture to the right shows one of the two long panals that lines the canal.  Usually the panals are cut with a stripe panal however with the river of cornus we installed last week in formal on the canal landscape they wanted to try a new pattern that continued that feeling into the grass cutting.  This is only the second time that the canal panals have been cut in a pattern other than the straight line stripe pattern.  So we cut a nice relaxed wave into the panal.  We used our honda push mowers with rollers on the back to create the different colors.  Depending on which way you were headed up or down the bed determined if you got the dark green or the white.  It took me a while to get the hang of it but working with my supervisor Dave he helped me and gave me some pointers.  There was only one hicup on the end of the panals the formal department had just stuck in some pansies into the beds.  I didn't stop the mower soon enough and I ended up with my mower in the newly installed pansy bed.  Luckily I shut off the mower blades soon enough that I didn't suck up any of the pansies so I didn't damage any of the pansies.  I quickly covered my tire marks and carried on.  Dave my supervisor who was right behind me reassured me that it happens to everyone which made me feel a little better.  I just had to laugh at myself though at least me and the mower didn't end up in the canal which there was a pretty good chance of happening.  Dave and I got a laugh out of it at least.  After finishing the two panals we went up and took a look at our mirror panals and they look great.  It is cool to take the ideas/theme of the bedding and capture it in the turf.  Next we headed to the top terrace the other main enterance that visitos see upon entering the garden.  I got to work on my own after getting a quick overview as to what they wanted to be done.  I'm not the fastest mower or the neatest but for being new to the whole push mowing patterns it wasn't half bad.  The mowers are very nice but a little difficult to manuver.  It was cool to see all of the mowing come together you don't really appreciate the pattern while you are creating it but once you can look back at it it is quite something.  After finishing the push mowing we had some left over sod so we went to repair a patch in seven acres.   First we prepared the site which is one of the most important parts of turf repair.  We stripped the old pour turf and scraped of the dirt which was ground in with gravel.  Then we put down our top soil and got our sod pieces laid out.  Then we placed the sod down and forked up the good sod around it and neatly tucked them together to help keep it in place.  I worked with Dan most of the afternoon repairing he sod and finishing the mowing.  Below you can see Dan mowing another pattern in one of the drop down beds with another river themed turf pattern.  Also there are several pictures of our turf repair.