October 27, 2004

3:03 PM

How do the cut the big socks into the grass of the infield at Fenway? Giant baseball diamond sized graph paper? GPS? A guy with a walkie talkie circling in a blimp above barking instructions?

And a follow up; How do they layout corn mazes? Layout the maze with string/surveyors tape and plant accordingly?
posted by Keith Talent to (3 comments total)

This article mentions two ways top cut a maze: one guy cut the pattern with a week trimmer when the corn was a foot high, the other used a GPS and a lawnmower.
posted by LeiaS at 3:23 PM on October 27, 2004

gps and a lawnmower, apparently, for corn. If you check out Grounds Maintenance magazine, you can hear from David Mellor the guy who wrote the book on fancy mowing/rolling. According to the American Folk Art Museum baseball display

He uses rollers, 21" for the infield; 6' wide for the outfield, pulled behind lawn mowers. As a roller passes over the grass, it bends the blades so that they change tone when the sun hits at different angles. The designs can only be seen from the stands and, according to the players, are not a distraction.

posted by jessamyn at 3:33 PM on October 27, 2004

jessamyn beat me to it. Mellor's book is supposed to teach the average fella how to lay out a lovely little bandbox of their own. It has something to do with rollers and cutting the grass in opposite directions (to get the striped effect).

How do they layout maize corns?
posted by yerfatma at 5:17 AM on October 28, 2004