Are you amongst the wide population which starts to sneeze just as you want to enjoy the blooms in the garden? Then you are most likely to be affected by pollen allergy, a common affliction in our population. Every spring and summer, pollen released from trees, weeds and grasses get carried in the air and enter unsuspecting noses triggering allergic rhinitis which causes eyes and nose to water accompanied by incessant sneezing. Doctors estimate that nearly 50 million Americans express these symptoms popularly known as hay fever.

Often pollen which causes allergies are produced by the 'unglamorous' plants that do not have blooms. In North America, weeds are a major source of such offensive pollen with ragweed leading the list. Grasses like Kentucky Blue grass, Bermuda grass and Johnson grass also produce allergenic pollen.

However, you don't need to give up gardening. Instead with a little research you can come up with plants which do not cause allergies. These plants essentially produce pollen which is quite heavy to be drifting in the air and require butterflies and insects to carry out pollination. A good book to refer would be Allergy-Free Gardening (2000, Ten Speed Press), written by a California based gardening expert Thomas Leo Ogren. According to Ogren, closer a victim is to the source of pollen greater is the chance of developing an allergy through overexposure. For instance, birch pollen falls within 20 feet of the tree and is a leading allergen. So make sure you keep birch trees out of your yard. Ogren gives plants an allergy potential rating from one to 10, with 10 being the worst on the scale. So for an allergy free garden you need to look at plants with low allergy potential ratings. Studies also reveal that it is the dioecious or separate-sexed plants, wherein the male plants were the main culprits, as female plants did not produce pollen.

Since grass is a major source of allergy causing pollen and if you are hyper-sensitive then you need to substitute lawns with other alternatives like paths of gravel and stone and grow plants around such a landscape. If you still insist on a lawn it is advised that someone else maintains it for you.

Shrubs which can be used safely are azaleas, hydrangeas and red chokeberry. For filling the flower beds you could use lobelia, columbine, dianthus, hollyhocks, rockcress, impatiens, hosta, astilbe, zinnias and snapdragon. So you do have quite a choice here. Ogren recommends the red maple (Acer rubrum) as a must- have shade tree for the garden as it rates just 1 in the allergy index.

If you have a trellis, you can use passion vine quite safely. The list is anything but exhaustive, but here's a beginning to a sneeze free garden.

If you like Vegetables....These pages might also interest you:

Allium Directory, Amaryllis Directory, Begonia Directory, Crocus Directory, Daffodils Directory, Dahlia Directory, Hyacinth Directory, Iris Directory, Lily Directory, Tulip Directory