10+ Tips for Beating Seasonal Allergies

If you want to know what’s blooming in your area or when a specific type of grass or weed has a high pollen count, check out the National Allergy Bureau (NAB) data on the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology website. If you already know what grasses, trees or weed bother you most, use it to plan your outdoor activities.

If you’re not sure what culprits are causing your agony, start an allergy journal. Record the days your symptoms are high and compare it to the data on the NAB website. They'll email you a report if you set up an account.

If you are annoyed by allergies all year long, it might be due to dust mites, pet hair, dander or mold. Fortunately, there are things you can do around the house to lessen your symptoms. Unfortunately, there is some cleaning involved.

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The less stuff in your house, the fewer places for allergens to hang out. And, just as important, the easier it will be to clean thoroughly once a week. Get rid of old rags, newspapers, clothes and other porous items. Limit knickknacks, magazines, and other dust catchers. Focus on bedrooms especially, because you and allergens both spend more time there.

Use HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filters in the air conditioning system. Maintain the humidity level in the house at about 50 percent. Mold likes moisture, and dust and pollen are easily stirred in dry air.

Keep your windows closed when pollen counts are highest, in the early morning hours, between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., and in windy conditions.

Your bathroom is for mold what your bedroom is for dust mites — heaven. So inspect water pipes for leaks and fix them promptly. Regularly clean walls with a non-toxic cleaner. Make sure that ventilation fans are routed to the outside, and run them for 30 minutes after a shower or bath. Scrub away mold on pipes and fixtures.

Fabrics and carpeting help create dust by the breaking down of fibers. Consider pitching curtains, high-pile carpeting and upholstered furniture in the bedroom — all of which are cozy accommodations for allergens. Best bet: washable throw rugs over wood, linoleum or tiled floors. Regularly damp mop those surfaces, clean the walls and dust the furniture. If you must have carpeting, make it a short, tight pile and vacuum weekly with a cleaner that has a small-particle or high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter.

Make smart selections for the landscape. The yellow, sticky pollen that bees carry from plant to plant rarely causes allergic reactions. You might think those huge lumps of yellow pollen floating around this time of year are what’s causing your symptoms. But actually, the teeny pollen you can’t see is what tends to cause allergies. It's the fine, lightweight particles that are blown about by wind that trigger discomfort.

Make your yard more bearable by planting a low-pollen landscape. The best plants and trees are those that produce little or no airborne pollen. Plants that have sticky pollen or plants with no pollen at all, such as hydrangea and ferns are safe bets for allergy sufferers. Daffodils, daisies, lilies, pansies, and zinnias are among the flowering plants with larger pollen, so they may not bother you as much as ragweed and pigweed. Low-allergy flowers include astilbe, impatiens, hosta, scabiosa, columbine and viola.

Bulbs are great for an allergy-friendly garden because they tend to have non-showy flowers that aren't attractive to bee pollinators. Bulbs also bloom at a time when there is not a lot of background pollen in the air so your exposure level is a lot lower. Look for daffodils, tulips, snowdrops, calla lilies, dahlias, tuberous begonias, Asiatic lilies, hyacinths and crocuses. Carolina jessamine is an evergreen vine that climbs 10 to 20 feet on a trellis, arbor or wall. The tubular flowers are vibrant yellow and one to two inches long, keeping the pollen deep inside so insects, rather than wind, spread the pollen.

Hardwood deciduous trees like oak, maple, cedar, box elder and elm can cause sneezing, while trees with big, bright flowers, like apple, cherry and dogwood, usually have larger pollen that doesn’t blow around as much. Choose low-allergy trees like dogwood, double-flowered cherry and magnolia. Female ash and female maple trees are considered low-allergy, too, but buy from a reliable nursery source to be sure of the tree's gender.

Other low-allergy trees include ironbark, eucalyptus, crape myrtle, flowering crabapple, cherry, pear, dogwood and magnolia.

Small deciduous trees like redbud, hawthorn, fringetree and dogwood are among the best trees for allergy sufferers. Others include crabapple, golden-rain tree, dawn redwood and flowering pear. Flowering shrubs such as shrub dogwoods, cotoneaster, deutzia, rose-of-Sharon, flowering quince, bluemist shrub and butterfly bush.

Evergreens like firs, cedars and strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) are good for the allergy-sensitive homeowner, as well as fruit trees like apricots, avocados, peaches, plums, nectarines, persimmon, pineapple, guava, almonds and flowering pears.

Avoid adding allergenic trees like maple (male), birch and ash (male) to the landscape. Other trees you should avoid include acacia, alder, beech, buckeye, CA pepper, camphor, catalpa, Chinese evergreen elm, cypress (pictured), liquidambar, mimosa, oak, olive, pecan, sycamore, walnut and zelkova.