Ocoee resident Michelle Finley has brought Cincinnati-based WOW Windowboxes to West Orange.

For 10 years, Ocoee resident Michelle Finley owned and operated Kids Virtual Yoga LLC, a platform she used to extend the benefits of yoga to children. It was a way for her to use a passion to make the world a better place.

Now, she is using that same desire to connect with her community as franchise owner of WOW Windowboxes Orlando West.

Finley and her family had been searching since 2018 for the perfect business opportunity. They found it in WOW Windowboxes and launched the business in January.

“I was very particular,” Finley said of her search for a franchise. “My values are very important to me, and I really cared about what the widget was. It was important to me that we would have a business that AI couldn’t replace.”

Moreover, Finley said she found a connection between WOW Windowboxes and her health-focused background.

“One thing that yoga has taught me is that one small, intentional change, done consistently, can have profound effects on life, on how you feel, your environment,” she said.

WOW Windowboxes began in 2007 in Cincinnati. The business builds and maintains custom windowboxes and planters for homes and businesses.

Finley and her team customize each windowbox specifically to a client’s specifications. They build and paint each box by hand, and then plant four times a year using plants from local growers. Each installation includes irrigation, too, making the boxes completely maintenance-free for the customer. They’re also installed directly into the concrete or cement block using Tapcon screws, ensuring they will stay in place even during a hurricane.

“We call it a green-glove service, where you really just get to have this little piece of happiness,” Finley said. “You come home after a hard day of work, and you pull up to your house, and you have beautiful flowers.

“And for businesses, there is nothing more welcoming than when you have beautiful flowers out front,” she said. “People’s eyes are attracted to beauty.”

In addition to yoga, Finley and her family also share a passion for gardening, which comes in handy with their new business. Originally from Wisconsin, the Finleys moved to Florida 13 years ago and, ultimately, to West Orange in 2017.

“We have a 1-acre food forest, which doesn’t look pretty right now,” she says. “But most of our stuff will come back. My husband and I, on the weekend, we’re out in our area. We’re planting flowers. We’re planting fruit trees. (It’s) just what we do.”

With a shop based in Apopka, WOW Windowboxes Orlando West can serve clients throughout Central Florida — as far east as the Space Coast and down south to Kissimmee. And even though the product — a beautifying windowbox — is a luxury item, Finley said it can have a larger effect on a customer’s quality of life.

“It’s a way of giving joy, seeing beauty every day,” she said. “Those moments to just pause and see a butterfly land on a flower. To me, as a yoga teacher … those are just the little moments that just make life beautiful.”

For busy families in West Orange, WOW Windowboxes is a great way to add character to their homes without spending every weekend maintaining the yard.

“A lot of homes around here, they’re all beautiful, but they kind of all look the same,” Finley said. “So it’s a really great way to make your house look a little bit different. It’s living art. It’s just adding art to your home.”

And for those living in homeowners association-governed communities, windowboxes typically are considered a fixture. Finley said she has not had any HOA issues so far.

Ultimately, Finley and her team want to leave each client wowed.

“Our motto is, ‘We always leave it better than we found it,’” she said. “So we’re going to blow off the front porch. We’re going to clean the window that we’re putting the windowbox on. We’re going to make sure everything looks really, really beautiful.

“And it really is our goal of every customer that when they walk out or when they see it for the first time, they say, ‘Wow,’” Finley said. “And we don’t leave a property until it’s perfect.”

MOTHER’S DAY

Instead of getting her flowers that will wither and die, why not consider a windowbox for your next Mother’s Day gift?

And if you get your estimate done before April, WOW Windowboxes Orlando West is guaranteeing installation before Mother’s Day.

wowwindowboxes.com/orlando-west

[email protected]

(407) 336-9396