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Plants

Advice for little gardeners

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The Children’s Garden Book

Olive Percival

Huntington Library, $24.95

Olive Percival (1869-1945) believed that if children gardened, they would create a better world as adults. The writer, artist, bibliophile and Arroyo Seco resident penned this “potpourri of flowery facts and garden lore” but never saw it published.

Reproduced for the first time, the text and 106 line illustrations are endearingly dated, and the philosophy of the Arts and Crafts period is timeless.

The book opens with advice to young gardeners. A passage titled “If You Expect to Gardenize” is followed with an answer: Simply give plants what they need when they need it. A section titled “What an Amateur Gardener Needs” is followed with suggestions for tools, seeds and “a little make-believe and a great deal of stick-to-it-iveness.” Under the heading “A Permanent Christmas Tree,” you’ll read a plea for forest protection. Other subjects include plant names, sundials, cats, birds and drinking pools.

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Fifteen garden plans follow with fanciful names such as the Lavender Walk, Sliced Cake, Flying Carpet, Fairy Ring, Garden of Aladdin and Rosamond’s Labryrinth. Each is simple and small-scale, ideal for children and “grown-up amateurs.”

Percival’s inspiring book is bound in beautiful sage green linen with gold lettering and violet trim -- exactly as she envisioned it more than 80 years ago. The author would have been pleased.

-- Lili Singer

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Do you have a disaster plan?

Be Smart, Be Responsible, Be Prepared. Be Ready!

Governor’s Office of Emergency Services

www.oes.ca.gov

The plight of Hurricane Katrina’s victims, initially left to fend for themselves, should be a wake-up call for families to be prepared to be self-sufficient for at least three days after a natural or man-made disaster.

But in California, an estimated 70% of residents do not have an emergency plan or they are unaware of potential disasters, and less than 50% of households have a disaster supply kit, according to the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

That doesn’t have to be so. The website offers detailed information that will help households to prepare. The 10-step plan covers tips for creating a family disaster plan, including meeting points and out-of-state family contacts; preparing emergency supply kits; and storing medication and other necessities for the elderly and others with special needs.

The information, including a Family Disaster Plan Card for listing emergency phone numbers and meeting places, can be downloaded at this website, or a brochure can be obtained free by calling (562) 795-2900. In a few weeks, the information will be available online in seven languages. Also available: disaster preparedness coloring books for kids.

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-- Nancy Yoshihara

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Go through the wash again

Laundry: The Home Comforts Book of Caring for Clothes & Linens

Cheryl Mendelson

Scribner, $25

The author’s previous book, “Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House,” made a surprising splash six years ago. This new one, which premieres in October, is not so much a sequel as a revised version of the earlier book’s section titled “Cloth.” There are updated pages and a new introduction, but the original may do just as well.

-- Washington Post

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