# j1ggy's Tennis Court Journal



## j1ggy (Oct 14, 2018)

Ok fellas, I have decided to open my own lawn journal, although it's technically not a lawn, but a tennis court.

I'll post af ew of the newer pics here, and continue to update only this thread.

So, yesterday I've installed the Hunter PGP-ADJ sprinklers. I wrote earlier that I've had Gardena sprinklers, but they've been rendered useless by the clay / dirt. Some of them would turn half circle and stay in that position and some would just not turn at all.
And after reading a few reviews and comments, my mind was set on Hunter.

Here are a few pics of the installation process:





After the installation, I've decided to overseed the bare spots with the mixture I'm planing on using in the future.



It's Barenbrug RPR Sport and it's mostly ment for football / soccer and rugby, but I've decided to go for it because the grass at Wimbledon is usually cut at 8 mm or 1/3 inch and I really don't intend to cut that low, mostly because we have hot and dry summers here and I want the grass to be able to pull thru it with as little stress as possible. So I plan on mowing around 12mm or 1/2 inch, but all in due time.
For now, I've overseeded 550 sqm / 6000 sqft with 10 kg / 22 lbs of the RPR mixture and I'm not planing on doing anything for the next month or so on the court itself, since I don't want to disturb the grass too much.
I will mow it in about 3 weeks and then throw some N (which I plan to spoon feed thru most of the season), but it will depend on the weather and germination.

Anyway, here are a few pics of the court:

You can see here how well the court has established itself. I've seeded very late (10/25) and due to that, I'm very pleased with the results. It still bothers me that I didn't do it earlier, but there's nothing I can do about it now...





Here's the irrigation working:



That's all for now...


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## SNOWBOB11 (Aug 31, 2017)

Cool project.


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## j1ggy (Oct 14, 2018)

I have been a bit busy with my work and my court  but I think it's safe to say that's it's all coming along nicely.
As I wrote earlier, I have installed Hunter PGP rotors and after realising that my pump wont suffise, I've bought a new pump which is doing a really nice job even though I've fitted some pretty big nozzles (red No.9).

This is how they look in action, with a radius of around 13 meters or 40 feet and 7.2 GPM of flow per nozzle.






The pump is a Pedrollo selfpriming pump with which I'm pretty pleased.

Ok, moving further. This is my soil temp (and I know it's not the most accurate way of determing the real values, but it's the best I've got) and my pavement around 2 pm (it gets dark around 7 pm here now).





Before you look at the last few pictures, I've noticed something that I don't know how to explain.
Before my grass went dormant, it was around 2 inches tall, with only single shoot on each plant. At wround that time, I was thinking about mowing (december), but I opted not to, because most of the grass (80%) wasn't an inch tall, at the best.
Anyway, when I went to check out my grass in late january, it seemed like it had shrunk. I couldn't find a single shoot above 2 inches, but to my surprise, most of the grass (all of it?) had developed tillers and when I was digging the ground a few weeks back for the sprinkler instalation, I've discovered that the roots are around 3 inches deep / long and very well established. When I say very well, I mean almost like an established seasoned lawn. Oh, and I overseeded on the 02/25 and again on 03/16. And yesterday (04/10) I did my first mowing! I know it's a very long time from the sowing, but I only have my self to blame.

This is what my mower picked up. Mostly junk, but there's some grass:


After mowing, I went around with a roller. It's around 300 pounds.


The mower was set to 40mm / 1 1/2 inch.


And here's a pic om the day of sowing (10/25) and first mowing (04/10)


I've also spoon fed the lawn on 03/26 and today 04/11.

Now I'm just looking forward to mowing and after a few weeks I'll be putting kerbs around the court (on the inner side of the fence) to make it look more appealing. I'll also paint that nasty looking building on the left of the most of the pics all the way to the ground and do a lot, lot more to make it look the way I'd like it to be. I just want the lawn to establish itself before any heavy traffic (carts and tools moslty, maybe a lawn tractor).
Next mowing will be on monday and I'll maybe go down a bit more. I'm not sure on that.


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## Chris LI (Oct 26, 2018)

:thumbup:


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## j1ggy (Oct 14, 2018)

Haven't made un update in a month, so here we go.
First of all, let me start by saying that a lawn tennis court is an entirely different beast to a lawn. In any way you can imagine.
Sure, you can make your lawn look flat just by topdressing and doing a little compacting, but a lawn tennis court is a major PITA to construct and bring to a reasonable condition so that it can be at a minimum standard as far as playing actual tennis on it is concerned. I can't really say about maintenance, but I'll get there.

One of the major problems is the fact that it has to be level and have a good bounce. And to get it there, you need to roll it. By rolling it, you're compacting it. And if you start rolling it too early, you run the risk of over-compacting your soil while the grass is still young / weak. Which is what yours truly has done. Sure, I tried a tennis ball bounce on the concrete and on my lawn and the ball bounced 40 inches on the concrete, and maybe 15 on my 2 inch lawn. And when I tried the same thing on my future court, it bounced 20-25 inches. And that's wonderfull, but not when you have young grass and bare spots for the grass to fill...
Even though you have 20 inches of sand underneath the top 4 inches of topsoil, there are spots where the water will just sit on top of the soil. So you need to relieve that compaction because you have grass that is 7 months old, and you also have grass that is around 6 weeks old. Neither will be pleased when you roll it 4 times with 300 lbs roller once a week.
So, I had to relieve that compaction.

Major props to @ ConnorWard for all his videos and posts here, his lawn and his passion were the driving force behind what you're about to see.

This cart is my DIY project that I've been working on around Easter. As we can't get a Gorilla Cart here, I had to improvise and build something myself. And it was laboursome, as I had to learn to weld. But I didn't want to pay someone to do it, I wanted to do it myself: 


Pulling the cart is a Viking (Stihl) mower with 10.5 hp engine and my best friend riding it. You can see that the grass is fairly nice. It just isn't groving as fast as it should be and the leaves aren't as broad and maturing as fast as they should.



This is how we managed to spread all the sand. Again, I' ve seen something similar in Connor's videos, and made this myself. It's 10 feet long and 20 inches wide.



After we've spread all those 4 tons of sand, I just had an idea and did a test with my screwdriver on the outside of the actual court, where I've had heavy traffic (and I mean HEAVY, backhoe loaders, trucks with the sand etc.) and it was as freaking as compacted as my court. Which is the last thing I wanted for my young grass. So I did what I had to do:


Removed all the plugs and spread the existing sand some more, to fill the holes, left by the tines:


I didn't quite fill all the holes as the grass is only an inch and a half ATM so I'd be smothering it quite a bit. Anyway, I still need to use a broom to get it more into the canopy and we should be having a lot of rain in the next 3-4 days, so the sand should fill those gaps nicely. There's a section to the right of the most of the pics, which I did earlier and the grass got a bit pale as it took quite a beatdown from multiple passes with that 80 lbs leveling device (is there a name for it?) and didn't want to stress it anymore than I really had to...

That's it for now. I'm planing on waiting for a few weeks and then topdressing again to make it as flat as I can. I should probably aerate once more, but it's a waiting game and I'll just have to wait and see what I've managed to do today.


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## j1ggy (Oct 14, 2018)

Just a few pics:







Threw down urea a month ago, and the again yesterday evening. We had a week of 90 degree weather, so I didn't want to push it.
We should be getting high 70s next week, so I'm hoping to push for some more growth and then paint those lines in about 3 weeks...


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## Stuofsci02 (Sep 9, 2018)

Looks really great... I have been watching your project since last year...


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## Mark B (May 30, 2019)

:nod: Novak Djokovic would approve :thumbup:


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## j1ggy (Oct 14, 2018)

Thank you guys. Means a lot!

Now, a question. What is this?


I have those on 3 spots on the lawn, and all 3 are around 10 inches in diameter...


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## weed_wizard (Apr 18, 2019)

How is the tennis court project going?


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## j1ggy (Oct 14, 2018)

Sorry for not answering earlier.

I painted the lines yesterday and these two pics are from today:





I'll elaborate further once I get back from a family thing I have right now...


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