By Lauren Mauldin
I’ve always been a horse girl, but now I’m also a plant girl. I don’t exactly know how the plants started. Like many others, I picked up a few during Covid. When I managed to keep them alive, I thought, I’m basically a farmer! Then it became checking out the 50% off plants section at the hardware store until one day I blinked and I had over 60 houseplants scattered around my home.
Houseplants are marketed as sources of peace and grounding. And I mean, they’re great! I love all the green. I love when my monstera pops out a new leaf. I feel very zen and connected to the beautiful Mother Earth, and all that new age calming jazz.
But it spiraled. The plant app on my phone rules my life. I have a rain barrel so I can water them without chemicals. I have a tack-trunk sized collection of homemade soil mixes, organic fertilizers, and planters. So. Many Planters.
And, just like horses, my plants are prone to silent judgment and mysterious ailments.
In theory, horses and house plants come with “instructions.” We’re taught basic horse care and veterinary best practices. And my plant app tells me what each of my potted beauties should like. But in reality, both my plants and my horse are individualistic weirdos.
My calatheas get root rot if they get too much water, but if I miss one day of watering them, their leaves shrivel up like they’ve been neglected for months. My horse wants his daily turnout, but how much and how long depends on how much he has already rolled or how hot it is.
And we haven’t even talked about all the death yet.
Plants (and horses) look amazing until they very much don’t. Jokes aside, I will never fully recover from leaving to go on vacation with my horse in the best condition of his life, and a week later listening to the vet tell me that he needed to be humanely euthanized on the surgical table.
Plants are less tragic, but still come with spontaneous death as an added bonus feature. One day it’s glossy leaves, the next crunchy sadness. And don’t even talk to me about Fiddle Leaf Figs. They are Thoroughbreds in plant bodies, and I will die on that hill.
The good news is the internet is full of dark holes of Reddit and message board research about how to rejuvenate both your plants and your horses. Misery loves company?
It probably says something that equestrians like myself surround ourselves with “relaxing hobbies” that require so much work, research, and money (chunky soil mix ain’t free y’all). I talk to my plants like I talk to my horse, and congratulate them on growing a new leaf. Both also make me feel completely inadequate at times in my lack of knowledge—or power to fix their mysterious problems.
But I need my horse, and I continue to make sacrifices in my life to maintain his care and comfort.
And I also keep going, “Oooo” when I see a new houseplant variety I don’t have yet (and sneak it into the house to see if my wife notices).
Despite the drama and the frequent heartbreak, there’s something magical about helping a creature that doesn’t speak thrive. If you suffer from the horse/houseplants condition like me, know we’re not crazy. We just form deep emotional bonds with fickle organisms.
Maybe that’s a superpower, even if it isn’t foolproof.
About the Author: Lauren holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of California Riverside, and is a lifelong rider and writer. Through her writing she explores the intersections of mental health, equestrian lifestyle, and healing. She lives in Austin, Texas with her wife and furbabies and shows in the Adult Amateur hunters with her horse, Crusero.
