If you’ve ever seen Daisy Jane’s Flower Truck, it probably made you smile. After all, there aren’t many cute, poppy-red 1965 Ford Econoline “Spring Special” pickup trucks around town, especially ones selling flowers out of the back.
“I didn’t know how rare it was until after I bought it,” says Wyoming resident Megan Moore, the owner of Daisy Jane’s. “Then one day I parked it downtown and I realized how much it stood out among the other cars.”
It was just one serendipitous occurrence in a business that seemed like it was meant to succeed. When one became available unexpectedly, Daisy Jane’s added a second truck named Pearl Rose, and a retail location in Walnut Hills, Daisy Jane’s Flower Bar, opened in December of last year. But Moore started her professional career as a television journalist, working for stations in Michigan, Kentucky, and finally at Local 12 News in Cincinnati, where she earned an Emmy nomination in her last year. So what sparked the change from roving reporter to roving florist?
Television news, says Moore, “takes a toll on you. You meet a lot of people on the worst day of their lives.” She had always dreamed of starting her own business, so when her contract with Local 12 concluded, she decided to take the leap. “I was flying by the seat of the pants at first; I went into it pretty naïve. But I thought it would be something my hometown might appreciate.”
“Funny thing is,” she says with a laugh, “Now people like it when I knock on their doors!”
While it didn’t happen overnight, a lot of stars aligned to put Daisy Jane’s on the road to success. An experienced florist, Skip Dorl, taught Megan the ins and outs of the business; the Econoline pickup showed up in a random Craigslist post in Michigan; the second truck came from another florist who had decided to quit.
That was in February of 2020, just before the pandemic struck the United States.
Like most businesspeople, Moore worried about her livelihood. Many florists and suppliers had to discard flowers that went unsold. But the opposite turned out to be true for Daisy Jane’s. “Folks were buying flowers like crazy,” Moore says. “They were sending flowers to people they couldn’t see in person, and they felt comfortable visiting the truck outdoors. It was a form of self-care.”
She did well enough not only to support the second truck, but to open Daisy Jane’s Flower Bar at 751 E. McMillan St. Here, she says, she wants to have the same sense of fun people get from the trucks. “Our shop is like a playground. I view flowers as a creative material that nature gives us to work with. I want people to feel inspired coming in and give them the freedom to just create.”
The Flower Bar offers fresh flowers, of course, but also a terrarium bar for succulents, a selection of dried flowers, Parcel & Posie gift boxes, and classes in flower arranging. They can help with flowers for events as well.
While Daisy Jane’s Flower Truck leads a rather nomadic life, popping up all over Cincinnati, one of Megan Moore’s favorite locations is right here in Wyoming, where she and her family settled. “When we moved back to Cincinnati, we were looking for a smaller, intimate school system. Once we saw what a charming place Wyoming was, we fell in love with it.”
The poppy-red “Spring Special” can be found in front of Wyoming Community Coffee on Thursday mornings starting next month (Monday mornings in the short term). Moore recommends checking the Daisy Jane’s Facebook and Instagram accounts to see where they will be each day.
When you see it, it will probably make you smile all over again.
