According to the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology & Allergy, two in five Australian suffer from an environmental allergy or hay fever. If you are a sufferer you might be asking the question, ‘Can I have grass if I have allergies?’ The short answer is yes, and here’s why and how.
Most hay fever and allergy symptoms are caused by the pollen releases into the air so it stands to reason that if you reduce the amount of pollen in the atmosphere then the effects too will be reduced.
Rye and Bermuda (cool climate grasses) emit large amounts of pollen as well as being ‘wing pollinators’ which means that the act of mowing will spread the pollen up into the air. Buffalo and Australian native grasses such as wallaby, kangaroo, weeping and red grass product a lot less pollen and so make a better choice for hay fever and allergy sufferers.
How to reduce the effects of lawn allergies:
Of course there’s pollen in many other places and with the wind the pollen will be picked up and sent into the air – but here’s the fantastic thing about lawns. When pollen falls on the millions of long, narrow leaves that are your lawn they fall down between the leaves to the ground and are trapped there, stopping the pollen from spreading through the air and affecting eyes and noses. When it rains or the lawn is watered the pollen will be sent further and further down into the soil.
So, in fact, an average sized lawn will remove hundreds of millions of grains of pollen each year from the air and it will trap much more pollen than it will ever produce over its lifetime.
The answer to your questions then, is absolutely you can have grass, you just need to select the right type and take a few steps to reduce its affect. Contact Harden Park Lawns if you have any further questions.
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