For many who suffer from allergies, enjoying outdoor spaces and gardens without needing antihistamines might seem like an impossible dream. You don’t want to spend all your time indoors or live in a bubble, but the plants right outside your door often act as your worst enemy.
The good news is, there are plenty of beautiful landscape plants that are less likely to trigger allergies. Creating a low-allergy landscape around your house can make the growing season much more bearable for allergy sufferers.
Replacing high-allergy plants with varieties that don’t produce as much pollen can also help communities make their landscaping efforts healthier for the people who live there. Low-allergy landscaping gives you a way to ensure more residents can enjoy the outdoor spaces in a community.
In this article, we’ll take a look at what low-allergy landscaping involves and which plants work best. Whether you’re working around your home or on a commercial project, taking steps toward low-allergy landscaping can have a dramatic effect. While you won’t be able to completely eliminate allergens, these tips will let you significantly cut back on the problem.
How Can Plants Be Low-Allergy?
Pollen is the most common allergy culprit. Most plants produce pollen, but they do so in different ways. Plants that are wind-pollinated release pollen into the air so the wind can carry it to other plants. They’re the worst culprits for causing allergies.
Plants that are insect-pollinated don’t need to let their pollen go. They want to keep the pollen inside the flowers so insects can gather the pollen. That makes these plants a good choice for low-allergy gardening.
Only the male parts of a plant produce pollen. Many plant species have both male and female parts on the same plant, but “two house” plants produce male flowers on one plant and the female parts on another. If you only plant the female, then you won’t have to worry about pollen.
In summary, you’ll want to avoid wind-pollinated plants like ornamental grasses. Instead, choose insect-pollinated plants like daylilies and roses. And for plants that have male and female versions, make sure you plant the female. That will cut-back on pollen in the air and help make gardens and landscape beds low-allergy.
The Best Low-Allergy Plants
It’s good news for gardeners that the best plants for a low-allergy landscape are also the ones with beautiful flowers. Insect-pollinated plants need showy flowers to attract insects, and they also look lovely in the landscape bed. Plants in this category include flowering bulbs, annuals, and many perennial plants as well. It also includes flowering shrubs and small trees. Here’s a partial list of the best low-allergy plants:
- Flowering shrubs, including smooth hydrangea, bumald spirea, and burkwood viburnum.
- Flowering trees, such as magnolia, crape myrtle, and Japanese pagoda trees.
- Perennials, including double hollyhocks, blue false indigo, coral bells, hellebores, and black-eyed Susan.
- Pollen-free trees, such as female juniper, Red Maple ‘Autumn Glory’, and female ginkgo.
- Showy annual flowers, including petunias, impatiens, summer snapdragon, wax begonias, and fall zinnias.
Don’t forget to make sure that the plants you choose are non-invasive and will grow well in your location. Also, keep in mind that some flowers with strong scents (like certain roses and iris) can still trigger allergies even though they don’t release much pollen. You can grow them, but don’t sniff too closely. Click these links for more ideas:
- Low-Allergy Plants for the Garden
- Allergy-Friendly Plants: Tips For Making Gardens Allergy Friendly
- Smart Plant and Tree Choices for an Allergy-Friendly Garden
Eliminating Allergy Culprits Around The Home
If you’re landscaping a home, you’ll want to eliminate high-allergy plants like bottlebrush and ornamental grasses. Popular trees like olive, maple, oak, cottonwood, and cedar are also problem plants. Few people realize these trees even have flowers, but they release large amounts of pollen each year.
Lawn grasses also flower and produce pollen. One solution is to mow the grass frequently to keep it from growing flowers. You could also replace the lawn with hybrid Bermuda grass, which produces low amounts of pollen, or a female clone of Buffalograss such as ‘609’, ‘Legacy’ or ‘UC Verde.’ Either mowing regularly or replanting the existing lawn with low-allergy grass is a great way to eliminate a huge source of pollen around a home.
Making Commercial Plantings Low-Allergy
Communities often plant male trees so they don’t have to clean up fallen fruit from female trees, but that just makes allergies worse. Plant female trees whenever you can, both commercially and around homes. Ironbark, eucalyptus, crape myrtle, and magnolia are also good choices for low-allergy trees.
When planning community gardens, parks, and commercial landscaping follow the same plant recommendations you’d use for around a home. Avoid ornamental grasses and wind-pollinated shrubs, and opt for flowering perennials and shrubs with showy flowers instead.
Plant new grassy areas with low-pollen grass varieties like hybrid Bermuda grass or female clones of Buffalograss. For lawns already planted with other grasses, mow regularly to keep the grass from flowering.
Changing Up Your Landscape
Following these tips will help you create a low-allergy landscape whether you’re gardening at home or working for commercial clients. With so many people struggling with seasonal allergies, it just makes sense to do what we can to cut-back on the amount of pollen entering the air around our homes and communities.
If you really want some of the plants that are more likely to trigger allergies in your landscape, there are ways to include them more safely. For any plants likely to trigger allergies, choose a planting location away from doors, windows, and outdoor seating areas. You should also plant them toward the back of a garden so you’re less likely to brush against them when you’re outside.
Tackling a new landscaping job means you’re going to need reliable landscaping equipment. If you need any new tools to make gardening, planting, and yard maintenance jobs easier, Richardson Saw & Lawnmower is the place to get them. We carry a wide range of tools and equipment from top-quality brands, including hand tools and power equipment for homeowners and professional landscapers. We’d love to have you stop in to see our selection and talk with our equipment experts about what you need.
