I don't know about you but I'm a big fan of "re-seeders". Those are crops that "come true" from seed and volunteer themselves all over the garden. Now, some re-seeders can be a nuisance, yes, but re-seeding edible crops come in quite handy. One of my favorite re-seeders is Dill.

My husband has asked me more than once..."so, why did you plant all this Dill again?" To which I always answer "I didn't, it planted itself". I suppose my front garden does contain what might seem to be a ridiculous number of Dill plants at this point, but they're just so pretty...and I happen to love Dill. There are of course other re-seeders in my garden, such as Arugula and Mexican Feather Grass. But none so prolific as the Dill. What are your favorite garden re-seeders?

As I get more questions about the new 'Black Diamond' Crapemyrtles and where to buy them, I thought I'd post this video about them from the LSU AgCenter.

Also, you can mail order plants from Plant Me Green and Sooner Plant Farm. Now, these are brand new plants, so do expect availability to be limited at this stage and don't expect to pay bargain prices!

If we're lucky gardeners, we have at least one special "garden buddy" that we've shared our gardening triumphs, failures, photos and obsessions with over the years. I'm lucky enough to have one of those garden buddies; my pal Carolyn Hestand Kennedy over at The Bark Tree garden blog. We met when I was 19 or 20 years old, her 22 (as best I can remember), whilst working at my first garden center, The Green Fiddler just outside of Denton, TX. I'd been working at the roadside nursery for a couple of years already. While we were a 3-acre facility, there were only ever 2 or 3 employees on staff at any time. One day I showed up to work to discover Carolyn there, who'd been hired by our colorful owner Carol Watson (really, Carol was a badass, but colorful sounds so nice!) Now, Carolyn and I traveled within the same circles and had both been in the art department at UNT (University of North Texas), but somehow had never crossed paths until our meeting at The Green Fiddler.

Being that I worked alone most of the time, I was tickled pink at Carolyn's arrival. We hit it off straight away...two artists with a plant addiction. Let me tell you, we quickly became the LIFE of every party we attended thereafter. I kid: Our endless one-on-one plant-centric conversations quickly drove off all bystanders. Somehow that never seemed to bother us. With Carolyn and I holding down The Fiddler fort, the owner Carol spent more time away. Our power team of two regularly handled the nursery all alone. Again, we had 3-acres so this was no easy feat, especially on weekends. Let's just say we earned our garden center chops in spades. Interestingly, there were plenty of male customers that seemed quite happy to let us load 50 or 60 bags of mulch into their trucks for them without assistance. Hmmm. LOL.

In any case, we lost touch for bits of time off and on over the years, but our love of plants always brought us back together. I left for grad school for Horticulture up in Michigan,while she headed off to New York for a career in graphic design. Eventually, I returned to Dallas as curator and research director at The Dallas Arboretum. Eventually for Carolyn, the plant bug was too strong for her to resist. She called me and I recommended she take up an internship at a botanical garden, which she promptly did at Wave Hill and spent another five years there.

Actually, it was during this time that Carolyn talked me into starting this blog...six years or so ago? Blogging was how she was keeping track of her garden goings-on and she wanted a way to keep up with mine. How could I refuse? So the growLively garden blog was born. All these years later and we're both still at it.

Three years ago, when Carolyn was ready to relocate to Dallas with her husband and young boy, she called me up to see if I could find a good horticulture position for her in town. DUH. I told her on the spot I'd give her a job if she could manage to relocated to Big D by March 1st. So she quickly packed up her small family and motored down to North Haven Gardens, the garden center I was running at the time. Me and Carolyn back together at a garden center. Full circle, eh? Carolyn is now the Marketing Manager for NHG and I'm out on my own...but I still consult for her on marketing needs. I'm so happy that after all these years, Carolyn and I are not only still friends and plant buddies, but also work colleagues in an industry we both love.

And yes, we can still run you off at a party in about 90 seconds flat with our planty banter.

So in honor of this fruitful gardening relationship, I give you "Food Flub", a gem of a gift given to me by Caro in 1993. Carolyn has quite the talent for "comics", but I'm convinced this is the best one EVER. It's based on a true story, which is awesome. What is even better is watching Carolyn act out this little comic of hers and sing the "Acorn Cake" song. A tiny yet dramatic moment in our gardening relationship brought to life. Cross pollination can be terrifying. Love you Caro!

Obviously, this artwork is copyrighted by Carolyn Hestand Kennedy. Reprint without her permission or Steal any of it, and I'll hunt you down with my garden mattock.

Need some new ideas for your spring and summer containers? How about unique pottery ideas? Check out my recent Gettin' Dirty segment on WFAA's Good Morning Texas show! The beautiful handmade pottery is complements of Redenta's Garden Center in Dallas, Tx.

Heads up folks, Sunset Magazine is hosting a photo contest for a chance to win a copy of the book "The 20-Minute Gardener".

To win a copy of the book, you just need to take these easy steps:

1. Like Sunset on Facebook: facebook.com/sunsetmagazine

2. Between now and May 20th, post your photos to the Sunset facebook page with the hashtag #20minutegardener

On Tuesday May 21st, Sunset editors will select the five most inspiring spring garden photos and winners will be announced via facebook. In addition to winning a copy of The 20-Minute Gardener, contest winners will be featured on the Sunset facebook page, Sunset’s blog, and westphoria.sunset.com.

Always looking for a good excuse to take more plant photos...as if I didn't have enough already!

Ok people, cool new plant alert! The new 'Black Diamond' series of crape myrtles is to die for. It's been a while since I wanted to plant a crape myrtle in my garden, but this is a must have. The 'Black Diamond' series comes in five bloom colors, all with the deepest of almost-black foliage.

The 'Pure White' is definitely going in my garden. I'll be writing a more detailed feature about the series in the Sept./Oct. issue of Neil Sperry's Gardens Magazine, so keep you're eye out! You can see the other colors available at www.blackdiamondblooms.com

'Black Diamond Pure White' photo courtesy J Berry Nursery

This is a guest post from Phil Nauta, author of a book I reviewed last year called 'Building Soils Naturally.' He teaches organic gardening at his website, Smiling Gardener

There’s a saying in permaculture circles: “everything gardens.”

What this means is that nothing in nature works on its own, including us.Instead of controlling everything in our organic gardens, we can get better results if we sit back and let other organisms do some of the work for us. First, we can start by observing existing patterns in our gardens, and placing our garden elements accordingly. This can be something as simple as aligning beds perpendicular to the slope so that we have less work to do flattening them out to avoid runoff and erosion, or making paths in shapes that reflect where we naturally walk in the garden instead of aligning them on an imaginary grid. We might notice that garter snakes like to hang out in the rock pile near the shed. Instead of tidying it up, we might plant our salad greens nearby, where the snakes can snack on any slugs that want to make a meal of our precious lettuce. We can also avoid a lot of weeding just by planting dense polycultures instead of single rows, or by encouraging some spreading ground covers in our perennial beds. Then plants do the weeding for us by physically and chemically dissuading competitors. This approach changes us from owners, managers, and sole employees, responsible for everything in our gardens, into relationship guides whose main job is to nudge the garden’s natural processes gently in a direction that meets our needs.

Know Your Friends.

If we start to view all of the organisms in our gardens as potential allies, rather than enemies, we can find ways to use their energy for our own benefit. Some of our most important allies are the smallest ones: the microbes! No ruler can rule without the consent of the governed, nor can we grow healthy plants without the cooperation of soil bacteria and fungi. Just by spraying your vegetable garden regularly with aerated compost tea and/or effective microorganisms, inoculating with mycorrhizal fungus, and mulching to keep your microbes fat and happy, you can vastly increase your garden’s output. We can also make friends with some of our biggest garden organisms: the trees. In hot, dry climates, a single tree can contribute huge amounts of water to the herbaceous plant layer by drawing it up from the subsoil. Or just choosing to “leave the leaves” instead of raking can also keep plenty of organic matter within your system so you don’t have to go out and collect or purchase more. In temperate coniferous climates, it can be trickier to negotiate our relationship with the big firs and cedars that want to shade our gardens and reclaim them as forest. But if we keep a clear delineation between forest zone and garden zone, these trees will provide us with a neighboring ecosystem that includes mosquito-catching frogs, soil-filtered well water, and many diverse beneficial insects.

When to Intervene.

Every time we intervene in an ecosystem, it takes more work for us to maintain the altered patterns. But we need to control some aspects of our systems if we want to keep them growing fruits, veggies, and flowers for us instead of returning to the local wild ecology. How much work this will take depends on where and when we choose to intervene. The guiding principle is to make our changes wherever the least effort produces the greatest result. In caring for soil, for example, this means that getting a lab test to see exactly which nutrients are lacking will save us a lot of effort, because we can apply just the right amount of only those nutrients instead of pounding the soil with amendments in hopes that one of them will help. Adding nutrients at the right time, when the microbes become active in spring, can multiply their effect compared to adding them during the dry heat of summer or the cold inactivity of winter. We can also apply this to the human side of gardening. By sharing garden work with friends and neighbors, helping each other out when it’s most needed, we multiply our efforts and turn toil into play. This kind of garden advice takes a bit more thought to apply than simple formulas like “use beer to drown your slugs,” though straightforward solutions like that certainly have their uses. But in the long term it saves us a lot of effort, creates beautiful, healthy gardens, and puts us in a better frame of mind each time we head to the garden to hang out with our friends.

Do you try to let nature do some work for you? Or do you like to keep things more tidy and structured? Let me know below, or feel free to ask questions about anything I mentioned...

In case no one has told you, you shoult not be planting standard Impatiens this year...even if you find them at a garden center or, heaven forbid a big box store. Why? Because there's a devastating fungal disease that has been a problem globally for Impatiens (Impatiens walleriana) for the past several years and it's now got a strong foothold in The U.S. Downy mildew, or Impatiens downy mildew has decimated this shade garden favorite...and there's no cure. The more folks keep planting them right now, the faster the problem will progress.

What to look for? First, look for stunted growth, pale light green leaves, leaf and flower drop and then eventual stem collapse. The disease spreads quickly so infected plants must be removed and distroyed. Don't compost these plants as you'll most likely not be able to destroy the pathogen in home compost. Also, the organism produces spores that can persist in the soil...so if you have it this year, you should not be planting Impatiens in the same bed next year.

Last year, suppliers were still stating they felt they could produce a clean supply, but honestly the disease just has too strong a foothold on the species at this point. It's already been spotted in Texas.

Is this a bummer? Yep. BUT, there are a ton of other beautiful plants you can use in your shady garden. Currently, the disease does not effect New Guinea Impatiens or SunPatiens. Personally, I'll be happy to see Dallasites be forced to try something new!

If you have shade and needs some color, give some of these shade performers a try:

• Lemon Lollipop
• Coleus
• Crossandra
• Angel and Rex Begonias
• Farfugium
• Browallia
• Jatropha
• Abutilon
• Lamium
• Heuchera
• Brunfelsia
• New Guinea Impatiens
• SunPatiens
• Ferns
• Hellebore
• Tiarella
• Upright Fuchsia
• "indoor" Tropicals are great for shade containers