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Why are more and more people suffering from allergies? Would you believe
that there are more pollens in the air than ever before in history?
Charlie Nardozzi explains why that is and what you can do about it.
Charlie also will reveal ways to reduce your allergy suffering by avoiding high pollen plants in your yard and garden. Tune in Friday evening and Saturday morning.
It’s garden and allergy season. 50
years ago, less than 5 percent of the population had allergies to plant pollen.
Now that number hovers closer to 40 percent. What happened? Plant breeders
started selecting male trees and shrubs (which are loaded with pollen) over
females (which have little pollen) to reduce that amount of "litter" that
falls to the ground from female plants. The unintended consequence is that we
have more street, park, and landscape plants that produce pollen than ever
before. Also, with the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, more pollen
is being produced and the pollen season lasts longer. So for those that suffer
with seasonal allergies, summer in the garden may not be much fun.
What’s a allergic gardener to do?
You could go for silk and plastic, but that wouldn’t be satisfying. Why not
create an allergy-free garden? While pollen can travel a great distance through
the air to your nose, it’s most likely your reaction is from pollen on trees,
shrubs, and flowers in your own yard. Start with buying trees that naturally
don’t produce lots of pollen, such as hawthorn, mountain ash, and dawn redwood.
Avoid trees advertised as "seedless" or "fruitless" because
they are probably male selections loaded with pollen. Look for known female
varieties of trees such as ‘October Glory’ maple.
For flowers, select double-flowered
varieties of favorite perennials such as coneflowers, daisies, hollyhocks,
sunflowers, and chrysanthemums. True double flowers don’t produce pollen. Check
out Tom Ogren’s book Allergy-Free Gardening which has a scale that ranks plants
by their pollen content. With a little care, you can spend less time sniffling
and sneezing in your garden.
Now for this week’s tip, after all
the rain we’ve gotten, many seeds and transplants have succumbed to rot
diseases. There’s still time to replant, but make sure the soil is well dried
out. Squeeze a handful of soil and if water runs out, wait a little while
longer.
Next week on the Vermont Garden Journal, I’ll be talking about basil. For now, I’ll be
seeing you in the garden!
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