Tariffs on tulips: An Adirondack business hit hard by trade policies

Ampersand Bulb Co. has turned to letters to representatives and social media to tell her story of a business hit hard by the current administration’s tariff policies

By Tim Rowland

In 2017, Linda D’Arco founded Little Farmhouse Flowers “basically with a shovel and a wheelbarrow,” cultivating blooms and designing wedding bouquets. When COVID-19 hit the wedding business went dark, so D’Arco pivoted to become a bulb wholesaler, now the Ampersand Bulb Co.

The business took off — the 250,000 bulbs she had ordered from the Netherlands eight years ago swelled to more than 10 million in 2024. Having outgrown her farmhouse, she ramped up hiring and took what would have been her salary and invested it in a Black Brook property that became her warehouse.

It was a classic example of American entrepreneurialism, the sort celebrated in this country. But now the country itself might end it all, as trade policies have added 10% to the existing 3.5% tariff on bulbs, adding upwards of $200,000 in costs to Ampersand and its customers.

This is likely unsustainable, said D’Arco, who has cut her 2026 orders by half, pulled out of the Canadian market for fear of boycotts and pricing uncertainty, and scuttled plans to hire seasonal workers this summer.

“The most disturbing thing to me is the rhetoric from the current administration that other governments pay these fees. I pay them — the people who are directly importing pay the fees. So we add that to our prices, and our farmers have to pay more for their bulbs, and they’re going to have to add that to the cost that they charge to the end consumer or the florist who buys their flowers. It just all gets passed down.”

Linda D’Arco

A further irony, considering that the tariffs are intended to bolster U.S. production, is that D’Arco is trying to restore to American soil the floral industry that was lost in the latter part of the 20th century due to open-trade agreements. It was a niche that as recently as last fall looked like a sure winner.

“We’re bringing a flower-farmer’s perspective to wholesale bulb supply and distribution, which we didn’t really have in our industry before,” she said. “That brings a lot of credibility to our product line, because we’re also growing the bulbs ourselves on our farm — we’re able to show what they look like and how they perform, so our customer base has grown immensely over the past couple of years.

But like all agricultural quests, it’s been a hard business  having to suffer, among other things, COVID-19 interruptions and uncertain crops due to climate change.

Still, it appeared to be a solid business with potential for growth. Last year the company bought a former American Legion building, turning the social hall into a warehouse and filling its walk-in coolers with bulbs.

“We started with a little barn in Jay, but we couldn’t handle bringing in all of these shipments to our small farm,” she said. “So we sunk our profits from last year and some that we anticipate making this year (into the Legion building). I took a salary cut myself in order to keep my staff wages where they were and to keep them employed. Now, with the uncertainty around our costs this year, I’ll have to take a cut this year too.”

Not sure where to turn, D’Arco — inspired by the owner of a Plattsburgh barber shop who publicly told his own story — wrote a letter detailing the effects of the tariffs and sent it to elected officials at local, state and national levels. She also posted it on social media to put a face on the consequences of political decisions.

In it, she spoke of the increasing wariness of her Netherlands suppliers, who are “frustrated, tired, and angry with the instability that our government’s economic policies are creating in the world.” The supplier, she said, is also worried about the weakening of the dollar, the ability of U.S. businesses to absorb the costs of the tariffs and, even if the tariffs are lifted, the effects of the resulting backlog on world shipping.

These overseas producers also have plenty of other customers in the world with whom to trade.

“Small businesses like mine don’t have time to wait. We don’t have American products to replace the ones we might lose. Many of our products can’t even be produced here. We don’t have a billion dollar profit cache to tide us over,” she wrote in her letter. “We are hard working people who supply other hard working people with the products they need for their businesses. And this administration is putting us all at risk of failing. I am happy to talk with you more about the challenges we are facing.”

A week later, no politician had answered her note.

Photo at top: Linda D’Arco, owner of Ampersand Bulb Co., is telling the story of her business’s struggles over the current administration’s tariff policies.