It’s been a great start to 2025 for the team at Celtic Manor who, following the introduction of numerous new sustainability initiatives, have received GEO certification on The Twenty Ten Course.
Part of the overall project saw the establishment of new wildflower areas to bring much-needed food and habitat for pollinators and other insects, along with high visual impact for players and staff alike - all achieved using mixtures from the DLF ColourBoost collection.
Overseeing the conservation projects across all three Championship courses is Environment and Ecology Stewardship Manager Gary Connell, who has been at the resort for over 25 years. Having worked in head greenkeeping roles on both sites, he is well placed to develop and diversify both the habitat and native wildlife in this new role.
“We’ve always supported a broad range of insects, birds and other fauna here at Celtic Manor but, like most golf clubs, we recognise we can do more” Gary says. “Working closely with local wildlife groups we have added more bird and bat boxes, introduced bug hotels and even established our own resident honeybees! Introducing wildflowers promised to further support the success of these initiatives as well as bring visual interest to lesser managed areas of the site.”
With little prior wildflower experience, Gary consulted with DLF Regional Technical Manager Ian Barnett on the best and most suitable mixtures for the project. “Our resort and land provide almost limitless opportunities for wildflowers, but we wanted to focus our efforts on a few areas which could be sustainably implemented, maintained and monitored. Ian identified an area near the main entrance and recommended Floral Carpet from the ColourBoost range.”
Floral Carpet is one of nine ColourBoost mixtures, each designed to bring maximum visual impact by incorporating both wild flower and garden flowering species. For situations where final growing height is important Floral Carpet is ideal, using lower growing season annuals to provide rich blooms throughout the season.
“Our objectives were to bring high impact colour at the resort entrance, provide invaluable insect habitat and a source of pollen and nectar, and I’m pleased to say we achieved all three. We saw a wide array of flowers which attracted honeybees, butterflies and some different moth species. We then let the seed heads drop and supplemented this with some additional seeding with ColourBoost Carnival which should result in earlier flowering in the spring. We also did some ‘seed bombs’ in areas including an embankment in The Twenty Ten car park to boost presentation.”
While mother nature hasn’t necessarily been on side for all of the club’s projects, Gary is optimistic on the potential in the coming year. “We sowed some DLF ProFlora 3 & 6 on the Roman Road course which will complement the existing native grasses and flowers we have on the 15th fairway and behind the 14th green. The rain dampened its full potential during the summer however we were all pleasantly surprised to see this surviving into the winter, which bodes well for what we can expect come the spring.” He concludes, “This work will continue as we work towards GEO certification for the Roman Road and Montgomery courses, collectively known as The Championship courses, to our recent successes on The Twenty Ten.”
