Home » Health & Wellness » Allergies » Part 2: Interview with author Thomas Ogren - Page 2

Part 2: Interview with author Thomas Ogren - Page 2

© Colleen Kaemmerer

and especially, male trees. They are everywhere in modern landscapes. Male plants all produce pollen, lots of pollen, and they catch and trap no pollen at all. With many of these separate-sexed species, ash, junipers, mulberries, elders, maples, cottonwoods, willows, pepper trees, all kinds of trees, often all they use now are males. They are drowning us with pollen with all these male cloned trees and shrubs. Why do they use them? No litter. Males don't produce any seeds, no fruits, no old seedpods. Male plants are "litter-free," they're seedless, they are fruitless, cottonless, but really, what are they? They are dangerous pollen machines and in our modern landscapes the balance is long gone now. In Nature you get 50/50. The females don't add pollen and they do trap pollen. But when all you have are males, you are simply just asking for trouble. By the way, many studies have shown that in the majority of cities, the total amount of pollen in a year, the "pollen load," is mostly from trees. Usually a typical city will get 70 to 90 percent of its yearly pollen from its own trees and shrubs. Grasses and weeds and flowers make up the rest of it. Got to have the right trees!

6. All garden allergies are not caused by pollens. The leaves and stems of some plants cause skin rash, itching, swelling, irritation. The sap of many plants, most Lily types for example, can cause terrible rashes. We need to know which plants can cause this reaction, and if we use them in our gardens, we need to place them out of the way. Not right next to the pool, next to the walkway. Some plants have smells, odors, that make some people sick. This is totally for real and can be deadly serious for quite a few people. Anyone with sensitivity to perfumes, needs to make sure that around their house that they don't have these plants under bedroom windows, next to doors, inside the house.

7. Use of the OPALS/TM scale. I ranked thousands of plants on the 1 to 10 scale. Creating the scale and figuring out how to rank each plant took years and years of work. Within the same species there can often be huge amounts of difference in the potential for triggering allergy. We now have this scale and it needs to be used. We should never plant things ranked 7-10 under a window, near the patio, near the doors, walkways, never ought to use them as cut flowers, as house plants. Up close we should use the plants with

The copyright of the article Part 2: Interview with author Thomas Ogren - Page 2 in Allergies is owned by . Permission to republish Part 2: Interview with author Thomas Ogren - Page 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.