I got a bunch of Flower Power daily Alicorns during a sale, they drop the flowers needed daily along with energy. Otherwise, some of the event intermediate prizes, as well as some Ivy Nursery critters, do multi drops including flower petals. Slowly adding these at lower levels will give you critters that drop petals on top of coal, or bacon, or some other resource we often need in events. We need red & purple flowers specifically for the Faerie Elixir. I have a good 15 of these color flowers, and slowly crafted the red & purple Shrubs in the Arboretum to put these out during WW instead of individual flowers (currently at 5 shrubs, eventual goal is 10-12). The Isle of Audra storyline drops a decent amount of Glimmerdust when collecting from clouds. This was great on the part of S8! We didn't have regular glimmerdust droppers as part of the storyline before (but I'm not done with them all, so I may be wrong). And Adventures will drop Glimmerdust Trove occasionally, so working on those when still a relatively lower level can get you a few of these glimmerdust droppers without spending gems. As well as religiously watching videos, if in the USA on an Apple device.
Doing the storyline to get the Trading Post to Level 10 will give you coin & random drops of many things. The Guardsman's dogs will often drop completed Simple Feasts to help with that Adventure.
And doing WW, with all your flowers/shrubs, etc. out, and collecting from everything you can (Quick Collect helps every 50 items or so tapped, for those whose devices support this), will top off your flowers, drops from clouds, etc. I keep 25 Red Mushroom Circles out for Glimmerdust. (Sidebar: these provide me with both Mushrooms and Glimmerdust. I do not have ANY regular mushroom circles, or mushroom patch, out At All) Park a monster somewhere off to the side, of course, so one doesn't interfere with collecting. It's why I recommend building up a couple dozen of each animal, or clouds, and a dozen farmhouses, 4-6 cottages, 2 each Library & Marketplace, Jeweler, Tavern; before getting really serious about finishing events. Especially if you aren't interested in spending any real $ or gemming parts of an event. If your time zone & life allow it, collecting from everything on your board possible using WW before an event using the 2 unlimited energy units offered to us, free, will help prepare you for getting through events. Just don't collect from things with extremely long timers (like cottages, Deep Mine, Market Place, Library, Ivy's Hut) if doing a WW the morning of/a few hours before the start of a new event. This is IMO the single best strategic move I make to prep for events. If you are topped off on everything during your first unlimited energy run, use the coin you have saved up to do Run #2 using mass Rock Outcropping chopping in an attempt to pick up a few Gold Nuggets. Put away things with short timers, fill the empty space with up to 40-50 Rock Outcroppings (less if you can't do Quick Collect), and chop up rocks to get those Gold Nuggets. I usually get at least 1 nugget doing this.
IMO this game is very mentally challenging, you really need to think about strategy until/unless you get to the point of tons of energy & resources available/saved. It's one reason why I love this game. I still have to plan/strategize, and I've been playing for years & have a decent "base queendom" (IMO, anyway
).