Marlborough Cricket is looking forward to the summer season and playing on its long-awaited new wicket at Horton Park, Blenheim. Ed Gilhooly, General Manager of Marlborough Cricket Association, says it’s 20 years since the #1 block was last renovated.

At Easter, Mexted Sports Turf began work to reconstruct the old nine-strip block. The clay was excavated, before spreading 100mm of AP65 basecourse to grade, followed by a 25mm topcourse layer.

Ward clay was used to build the new block, which we laid, compacted and laser levelled to a depth of 125mm. It was then keyed up and fertilised, before a final dressing of clay finished the block off. Soil excavated from the block was re-used to create two new spectator banks.
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As part of the upgrade, our irrigation team installed a new
irrigation system so the block can now be irrigated in isolation from the outfield, and a new main was trenched through the outfield to the irrigation control panel.

It was congratulations all round as Mexted Sports Turf’s
groundsmen were recognised in the 2024 Cricket Wellington
Ground of the Year awards. Hutt Recreation Ground, which is lovingly managed by veteran groundsman Kevin Wakefield, was voted Ground of the Year by Wellington cricket captains, who score the pitches each week throughout the season.

Kevin has 47 years as a groundsman in the Hutt
Valley and Wainuiomata under his belt, and his
passion and commitment have not only seen him
create exceptional playing surfaces season after
season, but he’s also passing on his knowledge to
our younger groundsmen. 

Our Fraser Park, Petone Recreation Ground and
Barton Oval groundsmen deserve an honourable
mention, as they were also ranked in the top five
Cricket Wellington venues this year. Congratulations to Ben Trethewey, John McKessar and Campbell Webster.

​No sooner had legendary singer, Tom Jones, finished belting
out the final notes of his sole New Zealand concert at McLean
Park, Napier in April, than Mexteds moved in to begin a major
renovation of the outfield and removal of the permanent clay
block in the centre of the field. The outfield is a Motz ECLIPSE hybrid turf, originally installed by HG Turf Group from Australia in 2018.
The surface must be renovated on a regular basis, and this
latest resurfacing was part of the long term maintenance plan and in line with HG Turf Group’s hybrid turf warranties.
Mexteds used a Koro Topmaker unit to remove organic matter, followed by grooving and sweeping to clean up remaining turf debris and stand up the hybrid fibres.
The area was then top dressed with turf sand and broomed to further stand up the hybrid turf fibres, before fertilising and dimple seeding.
Mexteds also removed the old permanent clay cricket block in the centre of the park and reinstated the area to match the rest of the park’s outfield, with geotextile cloth, Megaflo drainage pipe, drainage chip and turf sand.