YOUR PLACE.

Byline: - Compiled by Barbara DeWitt

RAINY DAY CLEANUP: As the Southland takes a beating with wind, rain and freezing nights, mud is sliding into flower beds, lawn lakes are forming in the middle of yards and flowers are drowning. And those last few remaining rosebuds have probably been beaten to a pulp.

To get your garden back in shape - until the next storm - try some of these tips from Hania Saoud of Sperling Nursery in Calabasas and Doug Laughlin, manager of the Orchard Supply Hardware store in West Hills:

1. Don't worry about the roses, since January is the month to cut them back anyway. And it's OK to do it in the rain - or wait for sunshine.

2. Do some general cleanup, disposing of the drowned snails, picking up broken branches and debris, and pruning broken limbs to the next main ``nub.'' Then paint on tree-seal to protect from bugs and disease.

3. If you've got mud slides in your yard, use a square-front shovel to move it off patios and walkways, putting it back into flower beds where possible.

4. Don't dig soil (and avoid walking on it) while it's still wet, as our clay-based soil will get compacted and kill plants.

5. Don't try mowing the lawn until it's completely dry or you'll damage new growth. It also makes the mower work harder.

6. Scrub birdbaths with a brush and mild bleach-and-water solution to get rid of green scum caused by standing water. Rinse well and refill. To avoid the problem, rinse and fill daily. Also check fountains to make sure filter is not plugged up with debris.

7. Restake trees that may have fallen over.

8. Pick off any mushy, damaged flowers in your beds to encourage new growth, but don't plant new bedding plants until the ground is fairly dry.

9. To protect fragile plants such as impatiens from cold, rainy nights, tent over with burlap at night. After a rain they may look limp, but they will perk up again in the sunshine, says Laughlin.

10. To drain flooded flower beds, check drainage holes in planters to make sure they aren't plugged with mud or debris. If you have retaining wall planters without drainage holes, drill some in the bricks or get a bucket to remove water quickly so plants won't get root rot or drown.

GARDENING LESSONS: Until the weather clears up, you've got plenty of indoor time to plot your spring garden. One of the newest books on the subject is ``Country Garden Planner'' (Meredith Books; $34.95) by Darrell Trout. It has photos of various types of gardens for different climates and instructions with planting diagrams to make it easy to purchase plants and plant them. There's a special section on plants that attract birds - among them fuchsia, pineapple sage, red salvia, zinnia, honeysuckle and trumpet vines. For butterflies, the author suggests azaleas, the butterfly bush, lilacs, cosmos, zinnias, petunia, phlox and snapdragons. It may come as a surprise, but those winged beauties also like parsley, dill and sunflowers.

If you need more hands-on help, check out some of the upcoming gardening classes. Beginning Jan. 4 the Arboretum of Los Angeles County will hold informational walks and activities for the family. Call [phone] for more information. An intensive two-day gardening study course will be offered Feb. 5-6 at Soka University of America in Calabasas, priced at $50. To register, call [phone].

POWER OF FLOWERS: You've probably tried your luck at tulips and daffodils - and found daffodils do much better than tulips in L.A. But there are a lot more bulbs to consider, such as allium - which is Latin for garlic, so you get beauty and your favorite flavor. In Pierre Gingras' new paperback ``Bulbs for All Seasons'' (Firefly Books; $19.95), you'll find a thorough but beginner-friendly introduction to bulbs and their cousins called corms, tuberous roots and rhizomes, with descriptions and some historical notes for garden club conversation. You'll learn that crocus dates back to 4000 B.C. and is used to obtain the dye called saffron, while dahlias' hollow stems were used in ancient times to pipe water from the mountains.

Once your garden is blooming, learn some new ways to arrange flowers in ``Flowerstyle: The FTD Guide to Flowers in Your Home'' (FTD; $29.95) and ``Arranging Flowers'' (Martha Stewart Living; $19.95). The FTD book tells you how to select and arrange like a florist, while Martha Stewart offers suggestions on how to arrange everything in your garden from long-stemmed roses to stubby little pansies (which she puts in a teacup).

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