SAFE Gardening
Nigel's interest in pollen allergy started in 2007 when he read an article about silver birch flowering early and causing an increase in the number of adults and children in the UK suffering from hay fever. He contacted American Tom Ogren, a pollen allergy researcher and author of "Allergy Free Gardening" www.allergyfree-gardening.com Tom visited Guernsey in 2009 where he ran free workshops during the Spring Floral Guernsey Festival Week.
Since then Nigel has since spent time with Tom in the United States and Canada learning about and understanding how the presence of certain plants can cause asthma and hay fever and which plants are non-allergenic. He was fortunate to be present during the talks about allergy-friendly plants with representatives of Landscape Ontario and Canada In Bloom. He subsequently met Peter Prakke, the founder of Allergy Free school yards, who has since become a good friend.
In 2012 Nigel joined Tom in Canada when he was carrying out a survey on behalf of Johnson & Johnson to establish numbers of highly allergenic trees in Canada's cities. Tom has developed the Ogren Allergy Scale (OPALS TM) < Link for further reading>, the first and only numerical plant allergy ranking system in existence, which is being used by the United States Department of Agriculture to develop allergy rankings for all major US urban areas.
Nigel is a Director of the Society for Allergy Friendly Environmental (SAFE) Gardening. The organisation aims to make the world a healthier place; encouraging the use of allergy friendly plants in gardens and landscapes (http://www.safegardening.org)
PRESS RELEASE***PRESS RELEASE***PRESS RELEASE***PRESS RELEASE
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On The Re-Sexing Of Trees And Other Matters Respiratory
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