Stack all your best units for your helper squad then switch from team 1 to team 2 as your main squad if you want more balanced teams like you have. Better helper squad the more appealing you look to friends and be able to keep strong friends lets you punch above your own weight.

Check which units have a desirable evolved skill and go for evolving them first and foremost to increase your effective power through passive skills.

Use Affection items on your units you intend to evolve sooner rather than later, affection bonuses double when evolved and evolving reduces a unit's power so high affection can minimize power loss or result in a gain in some stats.

Get rid of the 2* units as soon as possible 2* units don't get a skill when evolved so any exp you're giving the is wasted completely, your 3* units should eventually be replaced, but an evolved 3* still has a skill if you find yourself with not 4*+ to evolve and a 3* with a type advantage can still be more useful than a 4*.

As everyone have been saying, farm some manyus and prioritize leveling your 5* and your 4*s. Eventually, as you gain new girls, you'll swap out your 2* and 3*, so leveling them could be a waste of materials. You can try faming manyus with stage gardens, it's a nice way to gain exp too. Farming for gifts is valuable as well, as long as you keep prioritizing 5* and 4*.
Once again as people already said, evolving 2* seems like a waste, while 3* can be useful. However, I don't evolve anything bellow 4* since my goal is to swap out my remaining 3* as well, so evolving them seems like a waste of gold imho. But whoever you decide to evolve, just don't farm the dragon missions unless you're really about to evolve a girl, and get the girls to level cap before farming lvl 100 dragons if you need them.

Never forget your waifu, regardless the amount of stars she has.

Btw, I noticed the squad set up you posted was your #1 set.
Since your 1st squad will always be your helper squad, you should organize your set #1 by highest power, so your first squad is the most powerful possible, which will help your in-game friends out.

Trying to balance out squads' power and speed is the best way to go for your everyday usage set, but do that on your set #2 (or whatever other number you prefer)

I joined around the same time and have progressed about as far as this thread creator has.
It's really hard to find info about this game...
My question is how do you farm flower gems later in the game?
I have already gotten to the point where i have 3* most of the missions.
There has to be a way to collect them beyond raising girls to max affection and hoping to collect one from the Gathering missions.

Status Update time!!!

I'd Consider that a big Increase in Power so far.
I'm not sure if im ready or can afford to evolve anyone yet.(Please ignore Maria, She was a Special case)

Stage 1-3 or Stage 2-1 to farm manyus

I need more Manyus to get the rest of Team 1 up to 60
But my gold supply took a MASSIVE Blow (my 300k Gold Reserve is gone already, I barely have about 50k left.) not sure if this method is effective for me anymore

I'd say a little levelling via manyus maybe 11-1 and aim for the advanced gardens will cane your stamina mind

(lvl 46 and haven't started Mission 9 yet.)

Never forget your waifu, regardless the amount of stars she has.

Maria Leader of Squad 1 Says Hi

I'm still not strong enough for the ultimate event mission or advanced Dailies yet still aren't I?

Maria is the first one I evolved too, she is just too cute

I think you could evolve your max level girls. For me the hardest part is getting them to max level in the first place. You can easily bring them back up to level 20 or so with the manyus you have lying around and makes for a huge difference in strength. Even if you don't have much money right now, if you stop feeding manyus and focus only on dragons and gold you can gather the necessary materials pretty quickly. Give the advanced daily a try, it's much easier than the ultimate mission.