Silver Maple Samara

The silver maples sure have started to make a mess all over the golf course this past week, making it a challenge to find your golf ball and mow daily! The dense clusters of samara this season and the recent experienced high winds sure creates a huge mess. The silver maples fruit are samaras, each containing a single seed, and winged in shape, often referred to as helicopters. 

 The challenge for the grounds team is cleaning all the greens, tees and fairways each morning before we begin our daily mowing routines. We send out 5-6 guys each morning armed with backpack and pro force tow behind blowers to clean off all short grass ahead of the mowers. Blowing helicopters is quite a challenge as they have a tendency to want to "stick" to the ground and only move short distances.

The flowers on Silver Maples are in dense clusters, produced before the leaves in early spring,with the seeds maturing in early summer. The fruit are the largest of any native maple. Although the wings provide for some transport by air, the fruit are heavy and are also transported by water.

The major seed drop seems to be winding down at this time and things will be back to normal very soon. We are working together as a team to cleanup the mess and we will win this fight.