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Galena Berkompas • Urban Flower Farm • Education

@microflowerfarm

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Farmer & Dahlia Hybridizer
Growing 1 acre of flowers
Annual Dahlia Tuber Sale
Teaching How To Grow Flowers with Organic, Regenerative Practices
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I am forever plotting how I can remove more lawn and replace it with other plants. 💐

We have 3 big areas of lawn in front of our house along with two big borders. I have successfully replaced the two smaller areas and planted in pollinated friendly cottage gardens (I’ll list plants below)…. And I’m eyeing the borders next to prep and get planted in fall. The last area is the biggest: big enough that trees can go into it, so I’ve been working on a cohesive plan in my spare time, but eventually… no more grass. 💐

What you plant will vary by where you are, but here’s a list of my summer blooming go-tos that do very well in my area and are primarily perennials here.

•Roses (I prefer English roses)
•Veronica
•Blue Glitter Eryngium (Red solider beetles especially love this, and their larvae will go after slugs so huge plus!)
•Scabiosa
•Snapdragons
•Rudbeckia
•Feverfew
•Dahlias
•Foxgloves
•Yarrow
•Ninebark
•Sedum
•Lupine
•Spirea
•Hydrangeas
•Geum

I’ll be sharing more about how I plan out my cottage gardens if you’re interested and keep them relatively low maintenance so come back for that if you need some tips!
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#cottagegarden #flowers #pollination #gardening by @microflowerfarm

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3 months ago

Sweet peas are one of the best spring flowers because they smell so incredible and they’re so abundant! I get a pretty decent vase life out of mine: 5 days if cut at the right time. If you can find Japanese sweet pea seeds, those will last even longer! I was able to grow some last year and was seriously impressed with the smell and vase life length.

As with any type of pea, they do well with cooler weather, so don’t be afraid to start these on the earlier side. I’ve done experiments in the past and they can handle down to 28 degrees F easily without additional protection.

If you’re direct sowing, wait until your ground is thawed, otherwise start in trays several weeks before your last frost and plant out once the ground is thawed, but before your frosts are quite done.

They’re heavy feeders, so amending your soil with some good compost and providing plenty of water will help them perform the best in your garden!

I plant mine about 4 inches apart and stake them by doing t-posts 10 ft apart with a vertical netting attached in between. You can also use bamboo sticks to make a little teepee for them to climb or plant them next to an obelisk or trellis near your house. In my own climate, I can keep these blooming all summer long as long as I keep cutting them, but if you live in an extra hot climate, they will probably be just a spring flower.

They also don’t cross pollinate so you can save the seeds each year and keep growing your favorite varieties!

Save this if you want to grow sweet peas this year, and if you need more growing help ask away in the comments! 💐
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#sweetpeas #cutflowers #bouquet #cottagegarden #flowers by @microflowerfarm

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9 months ago

The magic of these spring flowers is real every season! I’m starting hundreds of ranunculus and anemones this year for long weeks of spring blooms. Possibly my very favorite thing to do in fall, for the promise and beauty they bring!
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#ranunculus #spring #flowers by @microflowerfarm

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10 months ago

Snapshots to finish off September! The dahlias did so well this year!! Also, swipe to the end to see our other bumper crop this year. 😬
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#flowerfarm #dahlias #dahlia #urbanfarming by @microflowerfarm

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2 hours ago

This time of the year you’ll find me out in the field saving dahlia seed pods for our hybridizing program for next year.

If you’re interested in saving seeds, just know that dahlia seeds do NOT produce clones of the parent plant. In order to do that, you need to grow from tubers. But all dahlia varieties originate from seed, so people who work on hybridizing new varieties start there.

Dahlias also have such a wide genetic pool they can draw from in every single seed, that it’s pretty standard in hybridizing to keep less than 10% of seedlings in each year of evaluation (minimum 3 is needed for each new variety)

Also not all dahlia varieties will make seed pods that have seed in them. Many don’t. If you want to save seed though for the surprise of flowers, you need to let the blooms fully mature on the plant and get pollinated. After that it takes an average of 6 weeks for the seed pod to fully mature. You can harvest them when they’re still green, but you have to make sure that the seeds are mature enough inside to do that. At this point I can usually tell by feel(if you can squeeze a lot of water out of the pod, they probably aren’t ready!), but you can always gently open it slightly and check the seeds too. They shouldn’t be green if they’re ready.

I lay mine out in trays by seed parent to full dry, but this is really because I don’t have time to process them when they’re green, but you can do that too, and it can actually be easier to remove the chaff if you don’t wait!

Otherwise, I’ll winnow them on a very low wind day and use a light breeze to separate the chaff from the seed.

Next year, these will get planted in our seedling rows, and I’ll rogue them down (throw out) about 90% to narrow down to the best ones and then those will go into evaluation.
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#dahlias #flowers #flowerfarm #urbanfarming #flowerfarmer by @microflowerfarm

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2 days ago

A long vase life can be difficult with dahlias, but that doesn’t mean impossible.

This potential 2028 release (a seedling in evaluation from my hybridizing program) blew me away after it sat in a vase, neglected in a 90 degree tunnel for 7 full days. I put in a comparison on what it looked like at the end… still more life in it!

The last handful are the blooms all freshly cut… it’s a gorgeous red with a purple tint that truly glows in person! As it ages, the petals get a slight bronze look. This bunch is now in a vase in my house in normal temperatures and we’re going to see how long they last!

Oh and I don’t have a name for this one yet, but if you have suggestions I’d love to hear them!
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#dahlias #flowers #flowerstagram #flowerfarmer #dahlia by @microflowerfarm

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4 days ago

Golden hour and flowers! ✨💐

The sunsets are happening earlier and earlier as the days get shorter, which means only a few more weeks of blooms… enjoying every second!
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#sunset #explore #goldenhour #flowerfield #urbanfarming by @microflowerfarm

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5 days ago

I’m so excited to share this immersive, hands on 5 day garden retreat that Misha @farmluxe and I will be co-teaching at her incredible gardens on the San Juan Islands in Washington in August 2027!

We both share a deep love for garden design and melding plants together into a beautiful cohesive space that radiates joy and peace.

Comment Gardens for more info, and feel free message either of us any questions you might have!

Photos are a mix from both of our respective gardens!
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#gardens #flowers #flowerfarm #cottagegarden #gardendesign by @microflowerfarm

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6 days ago

I know it’s been a lot of dahlias lately, but the start of fall means that my mind is turning to spring flowers!! For many growing zones, fall is when you plant most of the flowers for spring and this year I’m going extra heavy on ranunculus and anemones: two of my absolute favorite flowers to see bloom!

I’ve grown many over the years, but the Italian varieties remain my absolute favorite for their vigor, massive blooms and just the most incredible colors!

I also (finally!) will have the corms available on our farm website: these will be available early October and shipped in October as well in time for fall planting!

2027 is also (finally) bringing back way more cut flowers… which have been a little on pause since we moved here in 2024. But I’ve been building them up since we moved, and 2027 promises to be an amazing year!

In the next couple months, I’ll be posting a lot of my tips for growing successful spring flowers, so come back for those if you’d love to see these beauties in your own gardens! 💐
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#ranunculus #springflowers #flowers #garden by @microflowerfarm

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7 days ago

This will be a 2028 variety release from our farm, and honestly I love this SO much, I’m okay if only I like it. 😉My favorite dahlia color, incredible strong dark stems and great tubers. 💐

But it needs a name! Drop a suggestion below if you have a good one! My prefix for my cultivars is ‘Galena’ .
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#dahlias #flowers #flowerfarm #cottagegarden by @microflowerfarm

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7 days ago

These are all 2nd year dahlia seedlings that are some of the ones that have passed another year of evaluation with flying colors (I have a bunch more not shown!)

These are some of the flowers that I’m selecting down for when I cull seedlings each year…. And apart from the visual presentation in a video or photo form that can be seen, the part that I’m the MOST happy about is that every single one of these has an iron stem and a flower that doesn’t wobble around. 💐

As a side note: my dahlia seedlings are nameless until they pass 3 years of evaluation so these just have a number, but follow along if you want the news of when they’ll be released in the future!
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#flowers #urbanfarming #flowerfarmer #cottagegarden by @microflowerfarm

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11 days ago

The reality of hybridizing flowers is that most gets thrown out.

For those new to dahlias: if you want to grow a variety that already exists (example: Cafe au’ Lait), you plant either a tuber grown from a Cafe au’ Lait plant, or a cutting taken from a Cafe au’ Lait.

But hybridizing a new dahlia starts with seeds, or rather a LOT of seeds. This is a project I’ve been working on for several years at this point: started out as a hobby and has now turned into a full-blown passion that would take more than one IG caption to talk about. But every year you’re going to see clips on here of me throwing out a bunch of plants, and hybridizing is why I do that. None of these are named varieties: they’re all dahlias I started from seed and the whole process is done with the goal of narrowing down to the best of the best.

Why throw out so many? Dahlias have a massive genetic range possible as they are considered octoploids which means they have 8 sets of chromosomes they can draw from in reproduction (some recent studies indicate that they might actually be tetraploids, but that’s a different conversation). The very short version of what that means is that a lot of seedlings are going to inherit bad genetic traits: weak stems, bobble flower heads, not enough petals, downward facing blooms etc…

Now, people might have different perspectives on what’s “bad” or not, but for me: all of those (plus more) are things I don’t want, so any new seedling that has one or multiple of those traits gets composted. This process repeats each year: dahlias grown from seed in the first year will make tubers, and then those tubers are grown out in a 2nd year and 3rd year (hence “2nd year seedling” or “3rd year seedling”) and they are further eliminated down each subsequent year. How much? That depends, but for me, it’s most of them.

But the end result? My goal is to narrow down to the truly special, and unique ones that are just incredible in every way!

IG has a caption limit, so this really barely scratches the surface, so let me know if you have questions!
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#dahlias #flowers #hybridizing #flowerfarm by @microflowerfarm

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16 days ago