Allergy-Free Gardening: The Revolutionary Guide to Healthy Landscaping

I just finished reading and reviewing Safe Sex in the Garden, the newest book by Thomas LeoOgren. I had already bought and read (several times) Allergy-Free Gardening. I am becomming a real fan of this author, who I would say knows more about health and horticulture than any other writer I've ever read.Seriously, Ogren is that rare find, an original thinker who can write well. In both of his books thetext moves right along. It is almost like reading a good novel, except that as you read it,you are learning so many remarkable, often quite incredible new things. I have a friend who heard this author speak, at the Huntington Museum and arboretum, andshe told me that he is a fantastic speaker too. But that doesn't surprise me at all. In Allergy-Free Gardening you will see what has happened in modern landscapng, wheretidy plants (male) are so much favored over pollen-free plants (female). There is a hugesection in the book where many thousands of garden and landscape plants are discussed, andeach one is given an easy to understand allergy (1-10) ranking. Everyone I know who owns this book has put it to use, making their own yards allergy-free. I count this book as probably the most usefulgardening book I own, and find that I refer to it over and over, and not just on health matterseither. The culture of plants, how to grow them best, all this is well covered. I just can't recommend this book too highly. I wish that every single gardener, landscaper, allergist, doctor,and horticulture teacher owned a copy. The city arborists need to read this book too, sinceso often they are the ones who are planting all those allegenic, male, pollen producing street trees.This is a good one (as is the super intersting Safe Sex in the Garden) and if you have agarden and care about your own health, you'll simply love reading it.

In our quest for a tidier landscape, it would seem we have been creating an allergy laden nightmare. Many thanks to Tom Ogren, an agricultural scientist, for pointing out that in plants that have separate sexes, the female is always the one without the pollen. Unfortunately, she also has the flowers that can drop and litter the yard or sidewalk. This has led to the growing trend of planting male only trees in landscapes. But, if you have an allergy or asthma, these male only trees can be hazardous to your health because they produce the pollen. The good news is Mr. Ogren explains how to top graft your trees so you might be able to save them!Mr. Ogren has created an extremely useful tool to rate the allergen causing potential for thousands of trees, shrubs, perennials and herbs. In encyclopedic fashion, he lays out these plants under their scientific name and adds helpful insights about many of them. His allergen rating scale is so thoroughly researched that it has been adopted by the USDA to rank entire cities.There is so much more to this book than a discussion of pollen though. The opening chapters of this book have many useful ideas on how to lead a healthier life and in the process reduce your allergic reactions. For instance, flowers rated on the low pollen side of 2 to 4 in this book, are usually safe to have around unless you directly inhale their fragrance.Allergy-Free Gardening is bound to become a most valuable reference for all those who have allergies or who have loved ones that suffer from allergies.

Packed with information that is scientific yet very easy to understand, I found Allergy-Free Gardening to be completely useful. It is a book that I refer to often and already I have been making very good use of it in my own gardens. This book is arranged in such a way that it easy and quick to find any and garden plants discussed and allergy ranked. I like the way every plant is ranked on a one to ten scale since this makes it perfectly clear as to the allergy potential of each. I also have found this to be an excellent general gardening book, full of useful tips on much more than just allergies. The author's explanation about plant sex and male and female plants makes a great deal of sense. It is something that I hope will be much better understood in the near future. I have been recommending Allergy-Free Gardening to everyone I know who gardens and certainly to everyone I know who has allergies. It is an impressive, well-researched, fun to read book and really, a must for anyone with a decent gardening library. Last week there was a large article about this book in the San Jose Mercury News and the garden writer there obviously agrees with me. If you have allergies, this is the one to own.

After seven years of suffering with allergies, I read Thomas Ogren's book and was astonished to find that the problems have been right in our own back yard! Our by now enormous Modesto Ash, for example, was certainly a source of our wheezing and sneezing. In our fair city (Las Vegas) which values tidy, no fuss fruitless lanscaping over the natural plantings Ogren suggests, it's no wonder our citizens are plagued by chronic allergies. After having the ash professionally removed, I provided our landscaper with a copy of Ogren's book and he's using it to design (and redesign) allergy free environments--essential comfort zones--for other clients. I also sent a copy to my city councilman. Throw out your antihistamines and spread the word: Ogren's Allergy Free gardening WILL change your life! And when are we going to see his show on Home & Garden TV?

Finally, an alternative to massive drug-therapy for folks with pollen allergies! Allergy-Free Gardening is a radical book, full of the valuable information allergy-sufferers need to excercise control over their immediate environment, the most likely cause of pollen allergies (unless you live in Tucson, where the city planted fruitless mulberry trees whose highly-allergenic pollen makes it impossible for some to go outside).Ogren includes a comprehensive listing of plants and gives each an OPALS (Ogren Plant Allergy Scale) rating, so the informed gardener can now plant wisely and avoid plants that make people sick. OPALS is being used by the US Dept. of Agriculture in cities throughout the country-we can hope that with this new information, Recreation and Parks departments can begin making informed choices about what to plant in public areas so the likes of the Tucson fiasco is never repeated.It's an indespensible guide for any allergy-sufferer who loves to garden, any gardener whose children or family suffer from pollen allergies, and should be required reading for all landscape architects. A real find!