A flower farm, a family, and a place to call home.
I’m Misty, the flower farmer behind All Dahlia’d Up Flower Farm in Palmer, Alaska.
I grow seasonal flowers on our property in the middle of my husband’s family vegetable farm, where summer brings armloads of dahlias, fragrant sweet peas, snapdragons, and all sorts of other blooms.
But the story of how I got here started long before the flower farm.
How I found my way into flower farming.
When I was a little girl, we’d drive past this farm on our way to the Alaska State Fair.
My mom would point out the place where I was born in a car — in a driveway of what I later learned when I met my husband is his family’s Vegetable farm, Vanderweele Farm.
Of course, I had no idea then that someday I would marry into this farm, bring my son here, have a daughter, raise my family here, and eventually grow a flower farm right in the middle of it all.
Life is funny that way.
When I married Glen, I immediately fell in love with this place the moment he brought me here to meet his family.
The fields. The mountains. The big open sky. The dirt farm roads. The fact that there is always something growing, something being harvested, or something that needs to be done.
This place is my forever home.
My son Luke loved it too.
When I first brought Luke here to meet Glen at only 4 years old, like me, loved this place from the get go.
He loved being outside. He loved the farm and having room to explore. He loved the fields, the mountains, and all the things there were to do here.
Luke had Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a progressive disease that meant I knew from the time he was young that his life would likely not have him my entire life.
So when Luke came home from Kindergarten one day with a dahlia seedling as a gift for me. And then learning dahlias grew tubers I could propagate.
I was immediately compelled to do just that, I thought what a wonderful thing to have from him long after he was gone.
In 2010, Luke wrote a poem about this farm. He called it This Place.
This Place
There's a place on the farm
to get away from it all
This place has a certain charm
Open and free with no walls
Green rows that go on for miles
Topped with white flowers so high
A landscape so beautiful and wild
Yet not like the days gone by
Surrounding the field of green and white
A dirt road weaves and winds
Standing tall the fireweed is such a sight
A more perfect place is hard to find
The irrigation sprinklers spray the mist
The heat of the day shines down from above
The water beads on leaves its kissed
And moistens the ground that was tilted with love
Such a sunny day with white puffy clouds
A slight breeze sings through the leaves
Of trees that stand so tall and proud
And still such more to see
With Pioneer Peak rising to the sky
What an incredible and glorious day
And eagle soars on wings so high
This place just takes your breath away
Luke Delia ©2010
Read more about him ==>Here.
The purple dahlia that started it all.
When Luke died in January of 2013, those tubers became something much more precious than I could’ve ever imagined.
A few months later with spring right around the corner, lost in the deep depths of grief, I managed to pull myself together and threw myself into planting them.
When it bloomed that summer, it was the first time since losing Luke that the heaviness lifted, even for a little while. I remember feeling like he was loving me from heaven.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that little purple dahlia would become the beginning of my flower farm.
All Dahlia’d Up Bloomed, and Bloomed
The Beginning -Arrangements with Luke’s Purple Dahlias & Sweet pea.
And Now…with gardens full of all kinds of flowers.
What started with a handful of tubers eventually became a flower farm tucked into the middle of Vanderweele Farm.
Today, All Dahlia’d Up is a seasonal Alaska flower farm, where I grow dahlias, sweet peas, and all kinds of other flowers that Alaska’s short growing season will allow.
There are bouquets.
There is a flower stand.
There are wedding flowers and elopements.
There are starts to take home and grow in your own garden.
And yes, there are still weeds.
Lots of weeds.
There are also muddy boots, sore muscles, buckets, irrigation, weather that doesn’t always cooperate, and approximately 4,000 things that need doing at any given moment.
That’s farming.
And I love it.
Sharing This Place & Alaska Grown Flowers
For years, when people have asked how I got started in flower farming, I told them about Luke and the little purple dahlia he gave me.
That story will always be part of this farm. It’s the reason I started growing flowers.
But it isn’t the whole story.
There is a much bigger story here — one that started long before the flower farm, long before the gardens, and even before I knew I would one day call this place home.
The story started much earlier.
This place was here first.
I was born here.
I grew up knowing this farm was here, way before it was ever a part of my life story.
Luke grew up here.
He loved it here.
He wrote about it.
His words stay with me. They are another way I feel connected to him. They remind me of that the beauty of this place didn’t begin with my flower farm. It was already here, woven into the land and the lives of the people who love, live, work and play here.
Today, flowers are one of the ways I get to share a little of that beauty with others.
We’re the Vanderweeles
Living the dream of a seasonal farm lifestyle.
We agree, everything’s better with a view!
We live and grow flowers on just under two acres in the middle of Vanderweele Farm, Alaska’s largest vegetable farm. This is where we’ve raised our two children, Jenna and Luke, and where our family has put down roots. We’re proud to be part of feeding Alaska and growing something beautiful right here at home.
The 3 of us take great pride in feeding Alaska. We embrace the seasonal lifestyle as we tend our farms. Glen the fabricator of all things mechanical, me waist deep in the blossoms.
As for Jenna, she’s keeps her fingers on the pulse of both of her families farms while growing her own dreams in the world stained glass.
There is a sign in our entry that reads, “life is better on the farm” That it is.
Glen: is a second-generation vegetable farmer, master fabricator on his families Vegetable Farm. The guy who seems capable of fixing just about anything. He’s handsome, a genius in my book, and the one who supports my flower-farming dreams—and does plenty of the heavy lifting along the way. Around here, he’s truly my all of the above.
I’m Misty: —Glen’s wife, Jenna and Luke’s mom, author, speaker, and the flower farmer behind All Dahlia’d Up. I’m passionate about growing flowers that bring a little more beauty to Alaska, one lovingly designed bouquet at a time. Owning and operating my flower farm is truly a dream come true, and a labor of love.
Jenna: Keeps her fingers on the pulse of both farms as she pursues her own life and her love of stained glass. We love watching her find her own path while staying connected to the place and family she grew up with.
Life on the farm is a family affair. We each have our own part to play, and there’s always something growing, something to fix, or something that needs doing. And we wouldn’t trade this place we call home.
Welcome to This Place and the home of All Dahlia’d Up.
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