The gay-to-gardening pipeline is stronger than ever!
Yes, there seems to be a natural progression between coming out of the closet and realizing that the room beyond needs more greenery.
And the connection between gays and houseplants is well documented. In the span of one year, Autostraddle published both “A Beginner’s Guide to Establishing a Queer Houseplant Utopia” and “13 Easy Houseplants for Seasonally Depressed Gays and Their Cats.”
In a 2021 blog post for Canada’s Centre for Gay Counselling, Jordan Gruenhage listed eight ways plants teach gay men to live mindfully and care for themselves. Gruenhage observes, for instance, that plants teach us about caretaking, they affirm the sensitive parts of ourselves, and they remind us that having needs is not a problem.
And an entire episode of the houseplant podcast On the Ledge is dedicated to the LGBTQ+ population and their houseplants.
A bi, nonbinary listener named Charlotte told On the Ledge host Jane Perrone that they begrudgingly accepted a spider plant from their mom a few years ago. “In return, although I didn’t know it at the time, it gave me a purpose and it gave me space to be myself,” Charlotte explained. “It didn’t judge me, it listened to what I had to say, it grew and it thrived, and it made me feel better.”
And a gay listener named Jack said they feel alive when caring for houseplants, adding, “For me, every screaming leaf and extravagant frond is a foliar ‘F.U.’ to anyone who said I was too loud, too colorful, too flamboyant, too gay.”
Meanwhile, Twitter/X users have been seeding funny posts about plant gays and plant theys for years now.
Here are some of our favorites, including tweets from famous gays like Kim Chi and Daniel Howell and a wild post about unconventional plant watering.
MSM
I am proud to say that i do not own a fern. But i did know of a female who changed her name to Fern Leaf. It was the early 1970’s in NYC and everyone was going “back to nature”. I thought of changing my name to Rose Budd, but then put down the pipe.
abfab
There was (still is?) a family. The daughters were (are?):
Fern
Iris
Heather
Hyacinth
Rose
(no Jasmine, sorry)
Had they sons, what on earth would they have named them?!
still_onthemark
I’m good with plants but I’d be reluctant to name any of them. It would be bad luck to kill Madonna!
abfab
LOL
bachy
This article leads me to wonder if my inability to maintain houseplants means I’m a latent heterosexual.