What can I plant that horses won’t eat?
I have 2 repurposed galvanized cans (after horses smooshed them when they got into the barn aisle & had a “kegger” 
)
I tried mums & that was a Fail.
Thinking maybe asters? Or?
Planters Before Predation:
After:
If the plants are nontoxic the horses will e eventually eat them. If the plants are toxic you will always be worried and the horses may eat them or at least rip them out. I dont think you can have anything ornamental inside a horse space. Our in the parking lot well back from the doorways maybe.
What @Scribbler said.
You just can’t have plants where horses can get to them.
They’ll even eat, or at least play with, fake plants, and eating those is worse than eating a non-toxic real plant.
Hanging baskets high enough to be out of reach are about the only thing you can do.
Hmmmph!
Agree with @JB - no fakes for aesthetic as well as health concerns.
I stubbornly refuse to give up!
Maybe roses, with thorns?
Though I had a WB who ate thistle 
Thinking…
I have tons of volunteer Rose of Sharon & peppermint.
May try those as the transplants will be free. 
Sigh…ixnay to the ROS - Google says may be toxic to horses.
Roses are delicious! I often eat the flowers myself, horses like them, too 
Horses won’t touch most toxic plants.
We tried pentas but the horses ate those. Tried annuals (seed pack)- had beautiful flowers until the horses got them.
Try crape myrtle or plumbago. They will eat crape myrtle but haven’t killed the plants.
I planted Empress trees and one of my horses is determined to eat them. Now they are fenced off until the trees are bigger.
Oh dear. Please double check, but I don’t think daylilies are toxic, and our horses don’t eat them where they’ve volunteered in the paddocks. I suppose if there’s no grass they’ll chew up anything for amusement. Also check toxicity, but geraniums might be too rotten tasting for horses. I’m thinking of the ones that are red, pink and white, not the perennial ones also called cranesbill. But if you have a place to overwinter the other geraniums, they can go on for years.
Last suggestion: put some 4 foot high wire mesh on the inside edge of the planters to keep busy lips out. I’m thinking the stuff that’s 1x2" or 2x4" It’s pretty stiff.
Horses don’t really touch toxic plants unless they are bored or starving. I don’t plant them in my pastures but I have lots of perennials around my house and barns. If they get loose they’re using busy putting holes in my lawn and tearing things up and not eating my flowers.
Deer LOVE daylilies, and they can develop a love of the annual geraniums as well.
Not perennial but my goat won’t eat vinca. IDK if its toxic. Easy to grow, lots of colors and stands up well to high heat and sun.
My horses and even the local deer and bunny population haven’t touched my lavender or rosemary.
Horses love roses. They are not deterred.
My mom has luck growing native squash things. Horses leave them alone.
Granted said native squash things aren’t very pretty. But they make nice squashy pumpkin things
Some horses like to tump over trash cans and spread refuse everywhere. Think a bear got in the trash? No. There’s a fat horse on the loose.
Google says vinca is toxic 
Rosemary and/or lavendar could work…
Sigh
I was hoping for something with big, showy flowers.
Shoulda known… Horses! 
The individual flowers aren’t BIG, but take a look at some of the different lavender varieties if your spot is sunny. I have french and spanish, they are nice and shrubby and are practically covered in blooms from spring to fall. I have the standard dark purple as well as a white-topped one, but they come in pinks too. White-topped spanish:
I won’t weigh in on species, but just a hint for anyone using big cans/ water troughs, etc as a raised planter: Fill the container with packing peanuts or waste styrofoam, to about 12-15" below the rim. Cover that with a feedbag or geotextile cloth, and then put your soil on top of that. This way your container is light enough to move around easily! Unless you’re planting a shrub or dwarf tree, you just don’t need that much soil for potted plants.
And it 's a way to get rid of packing peanuts, since they’re not recyclable.
@2DogsFarm your soil level is so far below the rim that your plants are going to be in the shade most of the time, which most showy flowers will not tolerate.
Soil is stall cleanings with 6" gravel on the bottom for drainage, about a foot of composted manure/shavings on top. It settled more than I expected after I planted the mums & watered.
The mums were doing fine for the week or so they had before somebody nibbled the blooms off & uprooted them.
I can easily add more compost before I replant.
I may try mums again with a chicken wire cage over them, if I can secure the cage so that doesn’t get pulled off.
Maybe screw it to the cans?
It is getting to be a Fort Knox security issue 
Got it.
To secure chicken wire cage on the top, drill a few holes around the rim and insert eye bolts with a washer between can and nut.
You can use a zip tie to attach the wire “lid” to the eye bolts. Definitely no to screws-- they may poke you when you’re replanting, or get stepped on if they work themselves loose and fall out.
I built a similar cage / lid for a mint plant that the cats kept destroying–made a chicken wire lid that I could lift up to grab a few leaves for whatever I was cooking. It totally worked-- the cats eventually ignored the plant-- but it didn’t look nice. My 0.02 is it’ll be hard to make these cans horse-proof and preserve the aethetic appeal that the planters and flowers were intended to supply.
that stuff settles a LOT with the first watering, unless you add it pretty well dampened and pack it in, and as it decomposes, continues to settle
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