Garden.com attracted more than $100 million in venture capital during the late nineties, going on to raise another $49 million through an initial public offering in 1999. But, like so many of the high-flying startups of that era, the Austin, Texas startup withered and died. In 2001, Walmart and gardening company W. Atlee Burpee & Co. gobbled up the assets for just $4 million.

Now, Garden.com co-founder Cliff Sharples is cultivating a new idea. It's called DigtheDirt.com, and it is picking up where the Internet entrepreneur last left off.

"I am so excited to be in the gardening space again," said Sharples, who now calls the Seattle area home.

(Sharples' wife, Lisa, leads Seattle-based Allrecipes.com and earlier this month was promoted at Reader's Digest Association, the parent company of the online cooking site).

Cliff Sharples

Cliff Sharples describes DigtheDirt.com as a "social networking site for home gardeners." The site allows users to discover new plants, share landscaping tips and offer or receive advice in an online forum. The centerpiece of the site is a 6,500 strong database of plants, broken into categories such as roses, trees and shrubs and annuals.

DigtheDirt.com also features a personal notebook where gardeners can chronicle their experiences, similar to the recipe notebook on AllRecipes.com. In fact, Sharples should be able to take a few pages out of his wife's playbook, since AllRecipes has grown into one of the largest online cooking and recipe sites in the world.

We've seen big time failures in the online gardening arena before. In addition to Garden.com, Mount Vernon-based Etera filed for bankruptcy in 2001. It raised more than $17 million in funding from OVP Venture Partners, Fluke Venture Partners and others, and at one point employed more than 350 people.

Nonetheless, times have changed. And it is not uncommon to see failed ideas from the dot-com boom days resurrected, albeit with much more capital efficient models.

Sharples, for one, is excited about the opportunity. And this time he's not planning to raise the massive amounts of capital that he did in his last venture.

"After raising over $100 million for Garden.com, and working with venture capitalists on several other companies, I thought I would put more skin in the game and control my own destiny a little more," said Sharples in an email. "As we’ve all learned, online consumer businesses can take a long tome to find their business model, where milestones are measured in dollars raised as opposed to income earned. Investing my own capital enables the company to develop and grow in a manner where expenses can’t get too far ahead of earnings."

There are some advertisements running on the site now, including one from Seattle Urban Farm. But Sharples said advertising will not be the dominant business model. A subscription service is expected to be added on top of the free offerings some time next year.

"The centerpiece will be a system that enables home gardeners to get personalized, location-specific gardening to-do’s based on the plants in their garden, delivered bi-weekly/monthly," said Sharples.

A mobile suite of tools will also be introduced as part of a membership model, he said.

Eventually, Sharples said the company plans to incorporate e-commerce functionality so inspired gardeners can purchase their supplies, seeds or other materials.

"From a business perspective, it’s an industry that has always fascinated me as it seems to repel large, branded category-killers," said Sharples, whose working with noted technologist Bruce Tate on the startup. "While Home Depot and Lowes have the largest retail share in the industry, there are few companies in this $25 billion (plus) industry exceeding $100 million in sales in the U.S."

Sharples, who also founded the e-commerce trade association Shop.org, said gardening represents a huge consumer opportunity. It is one of the biggest hobbies in America, and it is growing fast as more people look to embrace a green lifestyle by harvesting their own food.

"Green living, sustainability, locally-sourced food and a desire to connect with the earth are driving renewed growth and interest in the gardening category," he says. "This younger crop of home gardeners like to source their information from peers – either people in their network or people like them found through matching characteristics."

Sharples learned a lot of lessons during his last go around in the space, so this startup will be an interesting one to watch. And he's not abandoning everything from the go-go days of the Internet boom.

After all, his title at DigtheDirt.com is a throwback to that era. He goes by Chief Cultivator.