An increasing number of cities across the country (including Albuquerque, N.M) are implementing bans against cedars, oaks and other big pollen producers.

The knowledge to put an end to high-allergy landscapes is out there. In the past, cities, counties, park departments and others have planted trees and shrubs with little regard to pollen.

People with allergies have the right to clean air. People with asthma should be able to go out without being bombarded by irritating pollen from their city?EUR??,,????'???s street trees. The persistent trend of using male trees, because they don?EUR??,,????'???t drop seeds, should stop. There are thousands of beautiful, hardy choices of trees, shrubs, and lawns that are known not to cause allergies.

More and more cities have tree committees that decide which trees can be planted. Often, however, they only consider the health of the tree and whether or not its roots are cracking the sidewalks. I would like to see the tree committees consider the sex of these trees, too. If the tree in question is a male, pollen-producer, I say, let them take it down and replace it with a female tree.

While the suggestion might provoke snickers, we need to start doing sex-changes on male trees. It is often easy to sex-change a tree from male to female. I have top-grafted quite a few male ?EUR??,,????'??fruitless?EUR??,,????'?? mulberry trees already myself. While they are dormant I cut the trees back to large stubs and then cleft-graft these to scion wood from a female, fruit-bearing mulberry tree. In the spring, the grafts sprout, grow like mad, and into a female tree.