Late July/early August sees the RHS host the now famous U12 and U13 minor counties cricket festival, with county sides from as far afield as Cumbria and Staffordshire taking part in competitive residential cricket. As the ECB Pitch Advisor for Suffolk,
Tim has no excuses for poor pitches. To his credit, the cricket pitches looked in great condition, in spite of the drought conditions at the time of my visit in early June. This fact is all the more remarkable as there is no dedicated irrigation supply.
In truth, the only service supply to the school is mains electricity. They have no gas or water supply, instead relying on oil fired boilers for heating, and a bore hole for potable water, sewage, and irrigation. The bore hole water is filtered and stored. Tim hasn’t had any problems with
water restrictions to date, as water consumption for irrigation purposes is low; only the cricket squares and bowling green are irrigated. Other irrigation options, however, such as grey water use and modern irrigation methods, are under review as it is felt that the present system in not sustainable.
Beating the weather
This year, there had been no significant rainfall between late February and early June, making 2011 the driest spring and early summer experienced at the school. However, it was noticeable that the non- irrigated playing fields were a healthy green; not the parched desert look that many fields I passed on my way to the RHS had. Tim puts this down to maintaining the indigenous grasses which have adapted to the conditions of
the maritime exposed south facing site, rather than interfering with the natural ecology by trying to introduce industry standard grasses. He cites regular cutting with a good quality of cut as the secret to the sites superb presentation and visual impact.
The playing fields are mown using a John Deere tractor equipped with a large Trimax triple rotary mower with rollers fitted, which means the fields can be mown all year round. A Jacobsen fairway mower is used to mow the cricket outfields, although Tim is considering changing this for a smaller rotary mower with rollers, due to the cost of maintaining and running the Jacobsen. The soil texture at the RHS is
predominantly sandy silt, due possibly to the close proximity of the maritime coastline. This means the site is very free
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The Climate
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