After fire destroys greenhouse, Mat-Su flower farm owners say they are scrambling

PALMER, Alaska (KTUU) - A Palmer couple is picking up the pieces after the greenhouse on their flower farm caught fire Monday night.

“It’s pretty devastating,” Brown Dog Flower Farm Owner Ben Swimm explained. “We put so much work into the structure.

“It takes an emotional toll to have put every second into something for the last three years,” he added, “and then see it go.”

Swimm and his partner, Mimi Rooney, have owned Brown Dog Flower Farm since 2022.

They said they anticipate it will take several years to rebuild the greenhouse.

“That just puts a huge roadblock in what we can do,” Swimm said.

Though the greenhouse, and all the tools and equipment that were inside, are a total loss, Rooney said she’s thankful that most of the flowers they had already planted survived.

“We’re lucky to be in a pretty good place,” she said, adding that many of the surviving plants are in smaller, unheated greenhouses called high-tunnels.

A fundraiser was launched earlier this week to help the couple rebuild the greenhouse.

Though the structure they worked so hard to build is no more, Swimm said they are grateful for their friends and neighbors who have reached out following the loss.

“It felt pretty empty to have that thing gone,” he said. [But] it feels like the support we’re getting from people is just helping fill that hole.”

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