Allergic to goldenrod? Try no-sneeze gardening

I don’t suffer from allergies, but it seems like everyone else of my acquaintance does.

This anecdotal observation seems to be backed up by actual research: 25 years ago, 10 percent of the American population reported suffering from allergies; now 38 percent of the population reports having allergies.

Is it simply that more people are aware they have them, or that more people are being asked the question, and are responding in the affirmative? As with all statistics, it’s hard to know.

Certainly there are plenty of businesses around the world that are now doing good business selling anti-allergy products, if that’s any kind of indicator. We have a full line of allergy-free bedding for my daughter, for example, as well as special air filters and vacuum cleaners.

And of course we have already started her on daily doses of over-the-counter allergy medications, at the suggestion of our pediatrician. She says the medicine levels need to build up in our daughter’s bloodstream before the worst of the season begins.

And what makes the season begin (with a vengeance) here in the verdant Northwest Corner? Plants, of course.

Like many gardeners, I’m already beginning to think (constantly) about what plants to put in my yard this spring.

I like plants that earn their keep, either by producing food or flowers. I’m less interested in things that are simply green.

But of course productive plants tend to be pollen-rich plants, and they  can make my daughter miserable (especially when I bring the blooms inside the house).

I’m trying this year to limit my garden purchases to plants that won’t make her sneeze. And I’ve found some help in making those choices: OPALS, a system that ranks plants on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being most allergy-inducing and one being the least likely to make you sneeze. The system was created by Thomas Leo Ogren, a garden designer in California whose wife had horrible allergies and asthma.

He started doing sniff tests with his horticulture students and eventually developed what he calls the Ogren Plant Allergy Scale (OPALS), which can be found online at allergy-freegardening.com (you can also purchase his book, “Allergy-free Gardeningâ€).

The scale has had some good reviews from gardeners and horticultural and forestry organizations; you can decide for yourself what you think by going to Ogren’s Web site and reading some of his articles (you can access them for no cost).  He does a good job of explaining why certain plants are more toxic to allergy sufferers than others. In a nutshell, anything that releases pollen into the air is going to be closer to a 10, while plants that neatly and quietly self-pollinate are going to be closer to a 1.

Here are some of the plants that he rates at 1 and 2 on his scale (the best plants for allergy sufferers): crocus, cyclamen, columbine, allium, foxglove, hosta, impatiens, orchids, peonies, pansies and petunias.

Some of the worst plants on the scale: forsythia, hellebores, goldenrod (surprise), love-lies-bleeding and artemesia.