It’s our tenth year and our first catalog cover that’s not purple. Scott plants bulbs with Martha Stewart on national TV, Horticulture publishes his “Tulips with a Past,” we offer our first hyacinths from the British National Collection, and launch our email Gazette. Green-thumbed Donna Squires comes to work and is indispensable for a decade when she retires to travel the country with her husband .

With the help of Scott’s sister Marcy, we upgrade our website so customers can actually order online. Suzanne Lewis features our bulbs in her award-winning calendars, and Scott writes about them for Fine Gardening and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The irrepressible Arlene Kennedy joins us, and she ships bulbs and entertains us for 15 wonderful years.

We offer almost 50 extra-rare tulips from the Hortus Bulborum. Scott speaks at the Texas Master Gardeners state conference and the 58th annual Williamsburg Garden Symposium. Salt-of-the-earth Lynden Kelly joins us for spring shipping and impresses us so much that for years she’s our shipping foreman and micro-farms manager.

Customer reviews rank us in the top 1% at GardenWatchdog.com. Our print catalog gets a helpful (and flattering) critique in Multichannel Merchant, the bible of the catalog world. We reduce our shipping charges — and keep them at that level for a decade. ‘Andries Orange’ debuts, one of a score of rare dahlias we’ve re-introduced from the British National Collection.

Scott speaks at the Philadelphia Flower Show, and The Christian Science Monitor dubs him “the Indiana Jones of Heirloom Bulbs.” Adrian Higgins of The Washington Post grows our broken tulips and pronounces them a “stunning floral cabaret.” Big-hearted Rita Bailey steps up to become our extraordinary office manager and VP for Customers.

Customers love our easy new Advanced Bulb Search. Scott speaks at the San Francisco Garden Show, Old-House Journal publishes his “Savoring Dahlias,” and we’re featured in The American Gardener’s “Havens for Heirlooms.” From Germany we re-introduce ‘White Aster’, the world’s oldest surviving garden dahlia.