The Review of Allergy Fighting Garden

I was moved by the story that Tom became interested in allergy-free gardening and kept researching for more than 25 years because his wife has asthma and allergies. As an entry level landscape designer, I have to admit I never considered allergy-free landscaping before now. This book opened up my eyes. This book not only talk about technical problems like plant selection and management do's and don'ts, but it raise the awareness of designers and planners about health issues.

I learned that the allergy problem is almost man-made problem. Because female plants are messy, USDA encouraged the usage of male trees, which produced large amount of pollen. Therefore, less mess, but 10,000 times more pollen than when both male and female were planted. I like this thorough explanation of how pollen evolved to be crisis and how we prevent it from the origins. The tips for management to avoid mold, is also very valuable for gardeners. For designers, the most important part might be the A-Z planting list with OPALS allergy rankings. Hope in the future most cities will update their plant list with allergy consideration.