Product Description

With allergy problems reaching alarming, epidemic levels, horticulturist Tom Ogren sets out to investigate the role that urban landscaping plays in this urgent health crisis. What he discovered was startling: The vastly disproportionate cultivation of all-male plant varieties produces large amounts of intensely irritating airborne pollen. This extensively researched, comprehensive, plant-by-plant reference alerts gardeners and helps them make landscaping choices that can drastically reduce their exposure to harmful allergens. Complete with alphabetical entries of basic planting information, growing zones, and allergy ratings.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #479308 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-01
• Released on: 2004-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Library Journal
This book presents a new idea and does so very well indeed. Ogren, a former landscape gardening instructor, proposes that in our private and public landscaping we need to reduce the use of plants that cause allergies. Until the publication of this book, the information needed to make allergy-free choices had not been compiled in one easily accessible source; nor had a scale been devised for rating plants that cause allergies. Here, Ogren accomplishes both these aims. His introductory material presents many plants and allergies new to this reviewer, and he shows how to apply his ideas. The main part of the book consists of plants listed in alphabetical order by their scientific names, with numerous cross references to their common names. Brief annotations provide descriptions and notes regarding allergies. The most important feature, however, is the rating of plants on a scale from one to ten (with ten causing the worst allergic reactions). As David Stadtner, a practicing allergist, writes in his foreword, "the book should be in the library of every nursery and municipal park department." It should be in public and academic libraries as well.
-Carol Cubberley, Univ. of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
“ALLERGY-FREE GARDENING will quickly prove its worth on the shelves of allergy sufferers.” —Indianapolis Star “Tom Ogren likes to talk about sex, sex, and more sex . . . with the allergy season in full bloom, this fascinating and useful book is a must-read for garden-loving allergy and asthma sufferers.”—San Jose Mercury News “This first-of-its-kind reference offers the avid gardener, landscape designer, and urban planner a chance to create a safe haven that offers allergy relief to the asthmatic, hay fever, and sinus community.” —Booklist“Will quickly prove its worth on the shelves of allergy sufferers.” —Indianapolis Star“This year’s break-through book.” —Harrisburg Patriot-News“This fascinating book will be a blessing.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer“Look for Thomas Leo Ogren's innovative book.” —Orange County Register E: The Environmental Magazine tells us that a copy of the book “should be as close at hand as your Benadryl.”


From the Trade Paperback edition.

About the Author
THOMAS L. OGREN is a former landscape gardening instructor, nursery owner, gardening radio show host, and author, with an M.S. in agricultural science. He currently resides in San Luis Obispo, CA.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Customer Reviews

Allergy-Free Gardening
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!

Wow! This is an incredible book!!
I just finished reading and reviewing Safe Sex in the Garden, the newest book by Thomas Leo
Ogren. 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 the
text 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, and
she 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, where
tidy plants (male) are so much favored over pollen-free plants (female). There is a huge
section in the book where many thousands of garden and landscape plants are discussed, and
each 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 useful
gardening book I own, and find that I refer to it over and over, and not just on health matters
either. 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, since
so 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 a
garden and care about your own health, you'll simply love reading it.

This is the best book on alllergies I've ever seen!
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.