My Wimbledon Lawn- Bogusław Prokop, Poland
My name is Bogusław Prokop, I live in Poland in the East of my country (Therefore my own 'Wimbledon in the East'). The Court is located in the small village of Bokiny.
Generally my main hobby is tennis and all things connected with it. I have a passion for designing and maintaining tennis courts - especially grass courts because it is the most affordable type of surface for common people who love this game and it is the most beautiful surface of course.
My parents and I have been building this place from scratch and it is still a growing project. I want to show that you do not have to be a billionaire to achieve a wonderful lawn like Wimbledon. Away from looking after the lawn my wife rescues abandoned animals (especially dogs) and therefore we have now got eight dogs and six cats - all animals have been rescued.
My passion of lawncare is strictly connected with my love for tennis. I've always dreamt about my own grass tennis court and decided to put my ideas into action. My inspiration to build a grass tennis court came from watching the Grand Slam Tournament Wimbledon on the TV since I was very young and I started thinking that the grass tennis court would be the ideal solution for me and in the same time it would be great to have that green lawn in my home garden. The type of grass used in my lawn is exactly the same type which is used at Wimbledon’s courts in London – Perennial Ryegrass (Lolium perenne).
We constructed a special kind of machinery to seed the big area and we made almost everything there by our own hands. Regarding maintenance of my lawn I have a YouTube channel where you can see how I renovated the lawn to get it where it is today. You can see the processes I have gone through e.g. sanding and seeding https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa5CesCdSI0yiAzeOxgivSw
I currently use an Allett Classic 17L mower. Generally it is a good machine and suits me very well. I would maybe change a few small details (because I am an engineer). For instance, I would make some innovations for changing cartridges without having to unscrew the side cover or at least unscrewing the side cover quickly with a knob.
I love Allett and maybe in the future I will be able to buy a bigger and more precise mower for example the Tournament. I need a mower that can cut very low and precise which the Tournament does. The ability to change the height of cut in increments of 1mm would be amazing as tennis courts have to be cut very low. With the Classic I can only cut as low as 6mm (on S). I am also restricted to the pre-set cutting heights.
I have got the following cartridges for my Classic.
- a) A standard cutting cartridge – 5 blades
- b) 6 blade cutting cartridge
- c) Scarification cartridge
- d) Aeration cartridge
The cartridge I would like to have next is the verticutting cartridge.
Tennis action on my lawn
A few requirements for Wimbledon
- Grass must be 100% Perennial Ryegrass;
- It must be able to survive the hard and dry soil conditions required for the perfect ball bounce;
- Grass blade cut must be 8mm;
- Watering the grass during the Championship should be minimal.
- Soil must contain 25% clay.
A massive thanks to Boguslaw for sharing his amazing story!
Find Bogusław’s Instagram here
If you have an interesting lawn journey story please get in touch with me laura.malkin@allett.co.uk.