November is the first real winter month. The green is closed, the renovation is done and the new grass should be through. From here to February the job is keeping the green clean, dry and hard, and November is where that starts. Two things matter more than anything else this month: keeping the surface clear of leaves, casts and dew so the grass sits dry, and getting the first winter iron on from the middle of the month, on the first dry, frost-free day you get.

I am Duncan Gray. I spent my working life in greenkeeping, latterly in charge of nine bowling greens for Kyle and Carrick, including Ayr Northfield for the World Championships. This is November as I would run it on a club green.

Some of the links below go to our own shop. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. I only point you at products I use on a green myself.

Jump to a section:

• Where the green should be at the start of November
• Leaves, ditches and the trees
• Worm casts, dew and standing water
• Mowing: a trim in the mild spells
• One deep slit, if the ground allows
• The first winter iron, from the middle of the month
• Fusarium: treat it the week you see it
• Leatherjackets: the window closes early in the month
• Banks: rebuild them by the end of December
• If one volunteer only has two hours
• What goes wrong in November
• What the green should look like by the end of the month

Where the green should be at the start of November

If October went to plan, you start the month with the renovation finished, the new grass through and growing, the autumn feed on, and the height of cut at six to eight millimetres. The full sward, new grass included, should look fairly fresh. If that is your green, go straight to the jobs below.

If the renovation ran late, check the autumn feed. It goes on when the new seed comes through, not on a date, and the seed takes two to three weeks to show, so a green renovated in the middle of October may only be ready for it now. The rule is the same as in October: a low nitrogen, no phosphate, high potassium feed, something like NPK 3.0.12 with magnesium, iron and seaweed, once the seedlings are up and not before. Put it on early and it pushes the old grass on over the top of the new.

If the renovation never happened at all, the green has a winter to get through without it. Keep to the programme below, and put the renovation in next year’s diary for the day the green closes: the steps, in order, are in autumn bowling green maintenance and renovation. If it has been let go for longer than one season, how to restore a neglected bowling green in one season covers what can be done and when.

Leaves, ditches and the trees

The leaves are coming down in earnest now, and they keep coming all autumn and winter, falling and blowing in from elsewhere. Do not let them lie on the green for any length of time. They block the light and hold moisture against the sward, which is exactly what fusarium wants. Scoop them off or blow them off every few days while they are falling. A blower is the easiest job, but it costs a lot for something used a few times a year, so a leaf scoop and a wheelbarrow will do.

Keep the ditches clean as the leaves fill them. A lot of modern ditch material is rubber spike matting, which lifts out to be cleaned; a stone ditch wants raking out regularly right through the winter. Keep the surrounds tidy while you are at it.

If the hedges and trees round the green were not pruned in October, early November is still the time. The last thing you want is branches over the green. Shade is the big enemy of turf grass, a shaded corner is a mossy, diseased corner every year, and fewer branches means fewer leaves on the green and in the ditch. One trim does not keep them back for long, so keep cutting back any overhang right through the winter.

Worm casts, dew and standing water

Casting is at its worst in very wet weather in the autumn, so expect plenty of it this month. Switch the casts off at least once a week, and always before you mow, or the mower smears them flat and you get a bare patch under every one. If casting is really bad, iron or sulphur pellets used properly increase the surface acidity and reduce it. Worms do not like iron, do not like sand, and are not nearly as active in a well aerated soil, so the medium-coarse sand dressing, the winter iron and the slitting all keep them down anyway.

On the mornings you are not cutting, switch the dew off as often as you can. Fusarium is far more common in the autumn and winter, when the grass sits wetter and there is less light, so keep the grass canopy dry: dew off, and the grass never allowed to get long.

Push standing water off whenever you can after heavy rain; left lying, it kills grass. Note where it lies before you do. Those are the low spots to raise with a little extra forking and dressing in February.

Mowing: a trim in the mild spells

The height stays where it went the day the green closed: between six and eight millimetres. Six on a firm green with very little thatch, eight on a softer old soil green that lies wet.

Mowing drops from weekly in October to a light trim whenever there is growth to take off, in any reasonably dry, mild spell. Mow in at least four directions alternately. Do not let the green get long because the season is over: long grass sits wet, and a green left long and shaggy going into the winter is a green with fusarium in it by Christmas.

The mower must be extremely sharp, kept sharp, and properly set. That is the one thing I would tell any club to get right in every month of the year, and I would say nine clubs in ten do not manage it. A blunt mower tears the leaf instead of cutting it, and a torn leaf in cold, wet weather is an open door for fusarium. If the mower has not been sharpened since the summer, get it done before the winter trimming starts. If the winter service is not booked with the agent yet, book it now: it can be done whenever in the winter the agent can take it, and if it is your only mower, the slot is February, back for early March.

From now until March, one rule covers the mower, the fork and the sprayer alike: no work on the green while there is a white frost on it. Walking on it once the white has lifted does no harm, but wait for the frost to be out of the surface before you do anything else.

One deep slit, if the ground allows

November’s aeration is one pass with the deep slitter, part of the monthly programme that started in October and runs to March, with chisel tines in between. Slit only when the ground is neither frozen nor waterlogged, and always in the same direction as last time: it is more effective, and it avoids cutting the turf into squares that can lift out. If the club has no slitter, a fork and a few willing volunteers on the heads and the wet areas is surprisingly effective. The machines, and what each one does, are in aeration explained.

What you do not do this month is scarify or hollow core. Those are autumn renovation jobs. Scarifying is never a winter job, because exposing the crown of the plant to frost can kill it.

The first winter iron, from the middle of the month

Iron is the winter treatment. It hardens the grass against frost and disease, keeps the moss down, and greens the sward up without pushing soft growth. The first application goes on from the middle to the end of November, and it is the first of at least three, four to six weeks apart, through to late February.

What I use is dissolved sulphate of iron, three kilos per green: one and a half kilos to each 25 litre fill of the sprayer, so two fills to a green. Buy it ready dissolved if you do not want the bother of mixing, or buy the crystals and mix your own. If the club has no sprayer, lawn sand does the same job at fifty grams per square metre, about seventy-five kilos or three 25 kilo bags on a full size green, though it is getting harder to buy.

It goes on in a dry, frost-free spell, and never on frozen ground. A hard frost, a very wet spell or high wind will all stop you, so do not hold out for the day in the diary: take the day when it comes. If the green is hungry, a little urea can go on with the iron, but only if it is needed. A green that had its autumn feed at the right time will not need it.

The moss blackens within a week or two of an application and is then dead. Leave it where it is. It comes out with the spring scarify in April; raking it out now would open the surface up to the frost. And sweep up any spill before it gets wet, because sulphate of iron stains paths and stonework.

The rest of the iron programme, through to the last application with a little nitrogen in late February, is in bowling green winter maintenance. There is more on the products, and what the numbers on the bag mean, in the best fertilisers for autumn and winter.

Fusarium: treat it the week you see it

If the year’s programme has been followed there should be very little disease this month. Fusarium is the one to watch for. It shows as small orange-brown patches, often with a white or pink fringe on a damp morning, and it is a disease of soft, wet, unaired turf. That is why everything above, the leaves off, the dew off, the trim, the slit and the iron, is also your disease control.

Any fusarium that shows, spot treat it the week you see it with a strong sulphate of iron spray, two and a half to three kilos to a knapsack fill, on the patches only, with a little top dressing on each patch as well. There is no need to do the whole green. Keep a fungicide on hand for a bad year, and with luck it sits in the shed; I have not used one on a green in more than forty years.

Leatherjackets: the window closes early in the month

If leatherjackets are a known problem on your green, early November is the end of the treatment window until next autumn. Nematodes are already out: they need the soil above about twelve degrees, and in Scotland after early October is far too late for them. That leaves Acelepryn, the one insecticide now approved for fine turf. It goes on in late October to early November, with the green spiked beforehand so it gets down to the grubs, and it is a professional product applied by a certificated contractor. It costs about nine hundred pounds a litre, but one litre does up to eight applications on a green and lasts five years or more, so it is worth sharing with other clubs.

Miss the window and there is nothing more to do this winter but watch. The grubs are at their worst right through the winter and worse again in the spring as they grow, and birds tearing at the turf is the sign. Repair the damage with a little dressing and a pinch of seed, and plan for next autumn. Everything else about them, from the signs to the overnight test, is in leatherjackets in your lawn.

Banks: rebuild them by the end of December

Any bank that needs rebuilding wants doing between late October and December, and no later if you can help it, so the turf is knitted in, rooted and settled before play and nothing falls off when the bowls hit it. Use a good quality turf of slow growing grasses. Once December has gone, the full rebuild waits for next autumn and February is for small repairs only, so with the green quiet and the leaves coming off, November is the month to get it done.

If one volunteer only has two hours

Somebody should be on the green every week, and from mid-March to the renovation there is no short version. But from later October to the end of February, if the week only gives you two hours, do these, in this order:

1. Worm casts switched or brushed off. Either way, kept clear.
2. Debris off the green: leaves, bird droppings and the like.
3. Check for disease, and if there is any, spot treat it with iron as above.

What goes wrong in November

Three things, in my experience, and they all come from the same place: the season is over, and the green drops off the committee’s list.

• Walking away from it. The green closes, the renovation is done, and nobody looks at it again until the daffodils are out. It is the commonest mistake in the bowling year, and it costs you in April. A green checked once a week comes out of the winter firm and clean; a green left to itself comes out thin, soft and mossy.
• A blunt mower, or no mowing at all. Either the mower that did the summer goes out without a sharpen and tears the grass, or it goes into the shed and the green is left long. Both end the same way: soft, torn, wet grass and fusarium by Christmas. Trim in the mild spells, with a mower that cuts cleanly.
• Greening it up with nitrogen. The green looks tired, there is a bag of spring feed in the shed, and somebody puts it on. A flush of soft growth now is exactly what fusarium is waiting for. The winter treatment is iron, with a little urea only if the green is hungry.

What the green should look like by the end of the month

Still reasonably green, and the sward healthy overall. The surrounds tidy and the ditches clear, no leaves or casts lying and no water standing. The height at six to eight millimetres and the grass not allowed to get long. The first iron on. From here, December, January and February are treated much the same, and the whole run is in bowling green winter maintenance: November to February.

Your November checklist

• Autumn feed on, if the seed was late coming through. Not before it is up.
• Leaves off every few days, ditches clean, surrounds tidy; hedges and trees pruned if October missed them.
• Worm casts switched weekly and always before mowing; dew switched off on the mornings you do not cut.
• Standing water pushed off, and where it lay noted for February.
• Trim at six to eight millimetres in mild, dry spells, four directions, with a sharp mower.
• One deep slit if the ground allows, in the same direction as October’s.
• First winter iron from the middle of the month: three kilos of dissolved sulphate of iron per green, or lawn sand at fifty grams per square metre.
• Fusarium spot treated the week it shows: two and a half to three kilos of sulphate of iron to a knapsack, patches only.
• Acelepryn by a contractor early in the month, if leatherjackets are a problem.
• Any bank rebuilding done by the end of December.
• No work on the green with a white frost on it.

Last month’s jobs, the renovation, the seed and the autumn feed, are in bowling green maintenance in October. The whole year is laid out month by month in a full year’s maintenance of a bowling green, and you can print it and pin it up in the shed: The Bowling Green Year, my free bowling green maintenance calendar (PDF). The winter iron, the seed for repairs and the dressing are all part of the bowling green package I put together for clubs, and if you would like someone to walk the green with you before the winter sets in, that is what I do.

All the best,
Duncan.