Groundkeeper irons out the creases at Garstang Cricket Club

During the heavy rain that followed in the wake of Storm Desmond in December last year, Garstang Cricket Club experienced severe flooding with water getting into the pavilion, washing away the perimeter fence, ruining machinery and cricket equipment, such as sight screens and covers, as well as leaving a layer of silt deposited all over the outfield. Since then Head Groundsman, Tom Wells, has been working tirelessly to get the pitches up and running for the start of the new season.

To assist in the reparations, Philip Dixon Contractors Ltd was drafted in with their new Amazone Groundkeeper set up in scarifying mode. This Lancashire based company, which was formed in 1978 by Philip Dixon, is still a family-run firm in the hands of Philip Dixon and his wife Catherine, together with sons Ryan, Sam and Tom and a team of highly - experienced loyal staff. They have always been a forward thinking business offering a personal service with a reputation for professionalism and quality of work that goes back over 50 years. Although with its roots in land drainage, the company also now provides a complete service in the amenity sector from re-grading, laser levelling, preparation and seeding work, through to maintenance operations including scarifying, sand slitting, top dressing, etc.

A policy of continuous investment in machinery and training has resulted in an extensive fleet of specialist machinery as well as a team of experienced operators that undertakes work mainly in the North West, and, as part of this investment, they recently added a Groundkeeper GHL/T 1500 SmartCut flail mower collector from local Amazone Groundcare dealer, GGM Groundcare, to their extensive fleet.

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The Groundkeeper, with its over-dimensioned, horizontal flail SmartCut rotor, offers the ultimate in flexible operation. The SmartCut rotor has a mixture of blades and paddles that are arranged in a chevron pattern to reduce power requirement, improve the collecting ability and reduce noise levels. These free-swinging blades overlap each other fully and which shred the cuttings into short lengths to ensure the maximum utilisation of the hopper space and also to give the fastest possible composting rates. The rotor sucks up the cut material or any other surface debris, wet or dry, and deposits it into the huge capacity, high-tip hopper. The rear height roller also leaves not only a smart striped finish, but also consolidates the soil surface to prevent moisture loss, improve root development and generally strengthen the sward.
And those blades can be changed within minutes, and without tools, depending on the application required. On offer is a choice of grass flails for rough cut work in scrub and heather, a mix of grass and wing blades for normal green space work or a sharpened long wing blade for fine turf work. The scarifying knives, in either 2mm or 3mm thickness can be inserted in between the normal mowing blades or run on their own depending on the depth of slit and degree of aggressiveness required. In scarifying mode, the set-up is ideal for collecting cores after a power corer on golf course greens and green approaches with the resulting soil/sward mix making an ideal top-dressing material. It takes leaf, litter collection, or any other organic matter for that matter, in its stride and can work not just on grass but on hard surfaces as well during the autumn leaf campaign.

It is this versatility in being able to carry out multiple operations that makes the Groundkeeper such an obvious investment as, here at Philip Dixon Contractors Ltd, the machine will be used constantly across a varied client base which includes cricket, football and golf clubs as well as with local councils in their autumn/winter clearing programmes.

And delivery of the new machine could not have been timelier as it went into immediate operation on the back of a Kubota STV 40 compact at Garstang Cricket Club to assist in lifting the silt deposits left by the flooding; leaving the soil surface aerated to get back that root strength and nutrient supply following on from being stood under water for days on end.

‘Dixons and the Amazone have done a great job on this surface, it has allowed us to achieve the desired results in one pass, leaving a lovely rolled finish’ said Mr Wells and Ryan Dixon, Contracts Manager at Philip Dixon Contractors Ltd, added, ‘We’re all delighted with the performance of the Amazone, it’s the complete package’.