Allergy-Free Gardening: The Revolutionary Guide to Healthy Landscaping [Paperback]

Thomas Leo Ogren (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 1, 2000 | ISBN-10: 1580081665 | ISBN-13: 978-1580081665 | Edition: 1

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.

Editorial Reviews

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.”

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Ten Speed Press; 1 edition (June 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580081665
• ISBN-13: 978-1580081665
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #701,857 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bio: Tom Ogren, San Luis Obispo, California

Thomas Leo Ogren has an MS in Agriculture/Horticulture from Cal Poly University. All his graduate work was on plant flowering systems and allergies. He taught horticulture and landscape gardening for 20 years and had his own radio show, "Tom Ogren's Wild World of Plants," on Public Radio in Minnesota. He has owned two nurseries and also dairy farmed for 8 years.

Tom's writing has been published in magazines such as Landscape Architecture, Women's Day, Earth Island Journal, Alternative Medicine, New Scientist, American Rose, California Landscaping, Pacific Horticulture, Pacific Coast Nurseryman, Wild Ones Journal, Smart Money, The Utne Reader, Der Spiegel, Second Wind, Garden Design, and Garden Gate. His research and writing has been called bold, innovative, important, and revolutionary.

Allergy-Free Gardening was his 3rd published book, and Safe Sex in the Garden his 4th. Both of these books have been reviewed worldwide in hundreds of publications, from the London Times in England to the Jerusalem Post, in Israel.

The Chelsea Garden show in England did an award-winning exhibit based on his research. Tom has twice been a guest on the Bay Area TV show, Henry's Garden, and has appeared numerous times on HGTV's "Smart Solutions." His work has been the focus of TV documentaries made by Toronto's City TV, and by The Discovery Channel. His work was featured on the CBS Evening News and he was also interviewed on National Public Radio's Morning Edition and on NPR's All Things Considered.

The Garden Writers of America nominated Allergy-Free Gardening as "The Most Important New Garden Book of the Year."

Ten Speed Press published Tom's next book, Safe Sex in the Garden, in March of 2003. In spring of 2004 Time Warner Books published his book on Lawns.

Tom has been researching landscape plants and allergies for over twenty years. The Canadian and American Lung Associations, New Zealand Arborist Association, local asthma coalitions, and the USDA Urban Foresters now use his research on allergies. Tom can be reached through his own website at
http://www.allergyfree-gardening.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Allergy-Free Gardening June 22, 2000

By Mary Rose

Format:Paperback

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!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! This is an incredible book!! April 12, 2003

By Isaac Victor

Format:Paperback

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.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Most Important Garden Book of the Year. August 6, 2000

By Said Addo

Format:Paperback

Allergy-Free Gardening is an unusual new book, one that breaks new ground in an important way. I am an experienced gardener and I especially like the way this book is arranged. Everything is easy to find, perfectly understandable, and makes good sense. I find that the plant-allergy scale in particular makes this book highly useful. The author of this book, Ogren, has done a huge amount of work, and it shows. Surprising to me too, was the author's use of numerous interesting antidotes about different plants. This is a very well crafted book and everyone I've show it to has also been impressed. I would recommend this book to anyone with any interest in plants, gardening, and, or, allergy. The advice here will be invaluable in reducing allergies in cities big and small, and most of all, in the actual yards of the people who are smart enough to buy this book.