Helping Home Maintain Pace

BOOKS

The idea behind “The Family Home” ($40, Stewart, Tabori & Chang) is simple: You should be ready and able to shift “from cool young couple on the go to parents” and have your home keep up.

Transformation is the key in Joanna Copestick’s 256-page hardcover. She takes readers through every room and offers ideas (with photos, of course) on how to make complementary changes to an evolving lifestyle. Besides design suggestions, Copestick gives practical information, including how to clean spills and other mishaps on fabrics, floors and walls. Six families, and what they did with their homes, are spotlighted.

GROW IT

“Easy Plant Propagation” ($13, Houghton Mifflin, 1998) is for anyone who has failed to grow plants from seeds and cuttings. This straightforward book tells gardeners what types of containers to have, soil to use and the preparation of seeds and cuttings. For instance, take stem cuttings from deciduous shrubs, vines and small trees during late fall to midwinter for best results.

THE WEB: Web Sites on Plants Blossom

Readers often ask for flower Web sites; here are a few new ones:

A THOUSAND BUDS

Bluestone Perennials (https://www.bluestoneperennials.com) is a commercial site but worth looking into if you’re seeking unusual varieties suited for Southern California. Its online catalog boasts more than 1,000 flowers, herbs, bulbs and ornamental shrubs, most with photos and care advice.

Bluestone Perennials includes a hardiness zone map to determine which plants are right for you. If navigating the map throws you off, there’s an easier way. Just type in your ZIP Code, then use pull-down menus for flower color, soil conditions, blooming desires and plant height and a list of choices pops up.

Bulb.com (https://www.bulb.com) is all about Dutch bulb flowers such as tulips, narcissus and crocus. Originally set up as a media resource by the U.S. Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Society, it’s a trove of facts and photos, some useful, others arcane.

In the history section, you can learn about the tulip mania in Holland in the 1630s. Tulips were traded like gold and speculation became so rampant that the government tried to restrict them as a commodity. It didn’t work, and the tulip market crashed in 1637.

Roses are probably the most popular flower on the Internet. Another good site is The Rose Page (https://www. mc.edu/~nettles/rofaq/rofaq-top.html). Besides appealing illustrations, there’s a mini-encyclopedia of all things rosy, from aphid control to fragrance characteristics to viruses and other diseases.

* To have a book or Web site considered for this column, send information to At Your Fingertips, Home Design, The Times Orange County, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Mark Chalon Smith can also be reached by e-mail at mark.smith@ latimes.com.