RHS

I am, yet again, totally baffled……..

There are around 12 million hay fever sufferers in the UK, approximately 20% of the population. And there are around 25 million amateur gardeners, approximately 40% of the population – and that is not counting those who garden for a living. It is therefore reasonable to assume that there must be an absolute minimum of 5 million gardeners (ie 20% of all gardeners) who suffer from hay fever….

Everyone, whether they garden or not, knows that certain plants (like pollen-heavy trees or grasses) give them hay fever. So by definition, certain other plants must be better for their hay fever. Given that hay fever is such a miserable and debilitating condition, why don’t gardeners and town planners design gardens and open spaces planted with trees, bushes and flowers that do not cause hay fever?…..

This regular rant has resurfaced because, of course, it is Chelsea Flower Show this week (‘town square garden’ pictured above). And, yet again, there is absolutely nothing anywhere in all the vastness of the Royal Hospital Gardens about hay fever or allergy. Plenty about saving the world, saving water, helping Alzheimer’s patients, and the partially sighted – all splendidly worthy causes. But why are none of them helping the snivelling millions whose eyes stream and whose noses are blocked every year by the pollen from the trees, and grasses and weeds? Especially when the answer lies in their own speciality – plants?

Several years ago I got so frustrated by this situation that, after the show was over, I contacted every show garden designer, large and small, to ask them whether they would consider designing a low allergen garden. Many ignored me but some responded quite positively. Several of them were hay fever sufferers themselves and always had a miserable time at Chelsea because of the numbers of plane trees shedding their pollen over the Royal Hospital Gardens. But in the end it came down to money and none thought they could raise the prodigious amount that it costs to build one of those show gardens (£100,000s) for a low allergen garden. Why? Because so few people have studied the subject and therefore understand that a low allergen garden can be just as delightful and appealing as one that is laden with pollen – it will just be different.

The American gardener Tom Ogren is a world expert on low allergen gardening. He has invented a plant allergen scale, OPALS (which made its first appearance in Wikipiedia about a month ago) and has written extensively about low allergen plants both in domestic and city planning environments. His basic tenet is very simple. Male plants are anxious to spread their seed as widely and profusely as they can so produce enormous quantities of pollen most of which is dispersed for them by the winds – and gets up human noses in the process. Female plants wish to attract seeds so they suck the pollen in thus cleaning the atmosphere – and going nowhere near human noses. This is particularly relevant in a city planning context as female plants/trees also tend to produce fruits which get shed all over the pavement and have to be cleaned up; male plants/trees do not. So it is pollen-shedding male trees that get planted.

If you wish to investigate further (and if you or any member of your family suffers from hay fever I really suggest that you do), checkout Tom’s website, read one of his books (Allergen Free Gardening or Safe Sex in the Garden – both available from the site or on Amazon) or read the articles, many by Tom, on the gardening section of the FoodsMatter site.

Meanwhile, back to Chelsea… Having done my usual round of the show gardens, cottage gardens and the big marquee without finding any mention of hay fever or inhaled allergens, I fetched up at the Discovery Corner in the Great Pavilion. Surely, here, I thought…. But no – after looking at really good exhibits on transforming waste land into productive land (Groundwork), sleeping ancient woodlands (The Woodland Trust), working allotments and the music of plants I ended up at the Rothamsted Research stand which was telling you how to control pests by using the right plants.
‘What about inhaled allergens and hay fever’, I asked, ‘ever done any work on them?’
‘Err, no’, the friendly young man replied, ‘although my four year old son does suffer badly from hay fever.’
Me: ‘Ever thought about doing some work on low allergen plants?’
Him: ‘Didn’t know there were such things…’

A brief discussion ensued, business cards and website addresses were exchanged and hopefully a small seed might have been sown. Next year a Rothamsted exhibit on how to grow an allergen-free oil-seed rape?…. Now how good would that be?…

PostScript. For those of you just interested in the flowers, this was ‘blue’ year…. Yes, the show gardens were very beautiful and all that but, they were all very blue and, to be honest, very similar. And if one more designer tells me that his/her garden will allow me to ‘reflect, contemplate and relax’ I shall be very tempted to throw a trowel into the middle of their ‘smooth reflective pool of water’…..

But show gardens aside, the flowers in the Great Pavilion were, as always, totally spectacular. Not that they will ever look like that in your garden, but it is always nice for a cat to be able to look at a king!

Chelsea Flower Show – Blue Garden Number 1.

Chelsea Flower Show – Blue Garden Number 2.

Chelsea Flower Show – Blue Garden Number 3.

Chelsea Flower Show – Blue Garden Number 4 – with potter’s shed….

Spurred on by our recent burst of unseasonally summer weather – and an email from from Laura Antebi who is coming to stay while she exhibits her wonderful horses, my mind has turned once more the Chelsea Flower Show.

Every year I set off on press day with my good friend Anne Davies who advises the RHS, among many others, on disabilty access, hoping that I am going to find at least one allergen free garden – and every year, I am disappointed.

Given that at a very conservative estimate, 25% of the population suffers from hay fever, not to mention allergic asthmatics and those who suffer from contact allergies triggered by plants – and given that there are loads of low-allergen plant options – why are there no low-allergen show gardens at Chelsea? Or, indeed, at any of the other RHS and local gardens shows around the country?

Several years ago, after yet another frustrated visit to Chelsea, I decided to try and do something about it. So I contacted the RHS. They were very friendly, and agreed that it would be a really good idea, but – the design of the show gardens, both large and small, was entirely up to the individual designers so it was entirely out of their hands.

So then I emailed all the designers who had been at that year’s show asking them if they might be interested in doing an allergy-free or low-allergen garden. I got about three responses, all from relatively small designers who said that possibly they could be, but… Unless I already had a sponsor they didn’t really think that they would be interested as they didn’t think anyone else would be…

I remember one particular conversation during which the designer admitted that he suffered from hay fever himself and that Chelsea was absolute torture as the pollen was dreadful. ‘So why not design an allergen-free garden?’ I said…… ‘Oh well, I just take lots of antihistamines and put up with it – that’s what everyone else does…… I don’t think that anyone would be interested in an allergy-free garden – it would be so boring….’

How negative can you be – and what rubbish anyhow! Anyone who takes antihistamines regularly knows that they may stop you sniffling but at the cost of feeling at the best dopey, at the worst, depressed, miserable and ill. And as for low-allergen gardens being boring…

OK, you may have to give up on swathes of grasses (which must surely have run their fashion course by now anyhow) but your garden could scarcely be dull if filled with aquilegias, azaleas, fuschias, heuchara, bizzy lizzies, Japanese quince, lobelia, narcissus, nasturtiums and wallflowers, not to mention glorious displays of begonias and clematis – and that is only a small selection of the low allergen plants that you could grow.

Come on, garden designers – and come on Royal Horticultural Society! Climb outside of your box and show some leadership here! We really do not need yet another sea-of-waving-grass-wild-flower-meadow show garden. Give us something that will allow allergic gardeners to enjoy their gardens without having to dope themselves up to the eyeballs or spend the whole summer with weeping eyes, blocked noses and itching hands!

If you need inspiration, there are a clutch of informative articles on the Foods Matter website including several by my good friend Tom Ogren who knows most of what there is to know about low-allergen gardening. Check his website or even go one further and buy one of his excellent books – Allergen-free Gardening, or Safe Sex in the Garden, both available from the site.

PS. I have just been reading about the Chelsea Fringe Festival – ‘a brand new initiative, entirely volunteer-run – entirely independent of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, though acting with its support…… The idea is to give people the freedom and opportunity to express themselves through the medium of plants and gardens. It will range from grassroots community garden projects to avant-garde art installations. Our open-access principle means that just about anything goes – as long as it’s interesting and on the subject of gardens, flowers, veg-growing or landscape.’ I can’t wait! the festival runs in May – both before and after Chelsea – but to find out more, log into their website.

Alas, still no allergen-free gardens…

Allergen-free gardening – we wish…