Can I have grass if I have allergies?

Grass AllergiesAccording 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:

  1. Select a low pollen producing variety of grass
  2. Wear a mask whilst mowing or weeding or better yet, have someone else undertake this job for you
  3. Wearing a mask, remove any moss which has mould spores that can affect allergy sufferers
  4. Use a mower with a catcher to contain grass clippings and the disturbed pollen
  5. Don’t use a leaf blower as this will just disturb more pollen
  6. If you must use a leaf blower, wear a mask, keep the windows and doors of your house closed and never blow towards the house
  7. Research suggests that some lawn varieties produce more pollen when under stress. You can avoid this by ensuring that your lawn is well maintained, fertilised, mowed regularly and watered infrequently but deeply.

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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