- Author: Betty Victor
A lot of us have allergies. I seem to have trouble most of the year. So it does make gardening a challenge at times when your eyes are watery, runny nose and sneezing. But as gardeners, we continue to garden.
There is a book written by Thomas Leo Ogren titled “ Allergy-Free Gardening”. In this book, he has listed and rated plants and their allergy potential from 1 to 10. Ten being the highest allergy plants. He suggests planting plants that are pollinated by insects, like bees, butterflies could help, also invite birds into your yard, they can help lower some of the pollen counts because of the insects they eat.
There are some plants that he suggests that are to be pollen-free or with a very low pollen count alyssum, geraniums, begonias, some shade plants like camellias, hydrangeas, hosta. In the shade plants, I am lucky as I have a lot of shade in the backyard thanks to a neighbor's very large tree. For trees, he suggested dogwood, redbud, and magnolia they are a few low allergy-producing trees.
Mr. Ogen also said that the bottlebrush (Callistemon) with their bright red flower clusters has heavy pollen that does not travel far and is rated as a 9. But if you really love this bottlebrush planting it in a far corner of your yard away from the house, might be an option. I have a hedge of bottlebrush between my yard and the neighbors, but it never blooms as I keep it trim, so the flowers do not emerge.
All his information sounds great but if you already have a garden and most of us do, even with our changing it from time to time which is the perfect time to think about the allergy count in what you are planting. There are a couple of things you can do to help if you are not doing them already.
Try not to garden on warm or windy days. If you live in the Fairfield area that could be a challenge with the wind. Wear gloves, glasses and long sleeves, be sure and wear a hat not only because of the sun but to keep pollen out of your hair.
After a day of gardening and trying your best keeping the allergies down, change your clothes so you don't take the spores into your house.
I try to do all of the above but there are times when I think I will only be out in the garden a short time, and forget most of the above. But most of all when I find a plant that I can't live without, I don't consider what allergy count it might have. Do you allergy suffers do that as well?