Nicole Kidman rarely sets a foot wrong in whatever she does, whether it’s an onscreen performance or a red carpet appearance. it stands to reason, then, that her brightly-colored garden borders are making waves on social media, too.
Honestly, posing with an exceptionally photogenic black cat on the set of Practical Magic 2, the actor’s wonderfully abundant flower border makes for a pretty perfect backdrop – and it’s full of ideas I want to steal for my own garden.
Better still? It’s all pretty achievable and low maintenance, not to mention brimming with whimsical cottage garden vibes, making it wholly fitting for the return of the Owens sisters… and for my own personal approach to gardening, too.
Nicole Kidman’s Bewitching Border Plants
As seen in Nicole Kidman‘s photo, the borders flanking the Owens house in Practical Magic 2 are filled with billowing mophead hydrangeas in shades of green, blue and violet, tall pink foxgloves and blue delphiniums, while darker purple foliage fills the gaps underneath.
Garden phlox adds another splash of pink, creating a border that feels almost overflowing with flowers without looking messy. And, for anyone who wants that same wonderfully full, slightly magical cottage-garden look, I think this scene provides a surprisingly useful planting lesson.
Check it out:
Are you ready for this? The trick is to think vertically rather than simply choosing lots of different flowers. As you can see in Nicole Kidman’s photo, the delphiniums and foxgloves provide height, while the hydrangeas occupy the middle of the border with their large flowerheads.
Lower down, the purple coral bells provides foliage interest and helps prevent the planting from becoming a wall of flowers. Basically, then, rather than planting everything at roughly the same height, combine tall, medium and low-growing plants so that the eye moves through the garden.
Shop Your Practical Magic 2 Border Plants List:
- Hydrangeas: try something like the Endless Summer® BloomStruck® Bigleaf Hydrangea from Nature Hills
- Foxgloves: give the Giant Shirley Foxglove from Spring Hill Nurseries a go.
- Delphiniums: we rate these bright Blue Delphinium Flower Seeds from CZ GRain Store.
- Garden Phlox: something like the Flame® Pro Baby Doll Garden Phlox.
- Coral Bells: go for the Amethyst Myst Heuchera from the Daylily Nursery for that same effect.
Opting for a layered border planting scheme like the one in Nicole Kidman’s photo means that there’s something to enjoy even when one plant isn’t flowering. The hydrangeas may provide the biggest blooms, but the delphinium stems, foxglove spires and heuchera foliage all contribute to the overall effect.
And this isn’t simply movie-set magic; the production team went to considerable lengths to make the Owens’ garden feel genuinely established. In fact, Architectural Digest’s behind-the-scenes tour of the set reveals that much of the greenery is real, with the greens department bringing in mature plants and trees and maintaining real vegetables through what was described as a very hot summer. The wider set reportedly incorporated thousands of real plants.
You don’t need to copy the planting exactly; you don’t even need to reproduce every plant in the film set if you borrow the formula. Just choose a few taller plants – such as delphiniums and foxgloves – and position them towards the back or middle of the border. Then, add fuller plants such as hydrangeas beneath them, and use lower-growing foliage plants such as heuchera towards the front.
You can also repeat colors throughout the border rather than assigning each colour to a separate section. Pink foxgloves alongside pink phlox, for example, help make the planting feel cohesive, while blue flowers echo the cooler shades of the hydrangeas. And remember, the magic of this style comes from allowing plants to knit together over time; you want to avoid perfection, instead aiming for a border where the plants appear to overlap and mingle.
Think about it; the Practical Magic garden has been designed to feel as though it has existed for generations rather than being freshly planted for a film, and it has been created with that sense of history in mind, using mature greenery and real plants to make the set feel lived-in.
So while Nicole Kidman’s Instagram photo might initially catch your attention because of the actor – and, admittedly, that extremely handsome cat – it’s the border behind her that deserves a closer look.
It proves that you don’t need rare or unusual plants to create a garden with real atmosphere; with a mixture of tall flower spikes, generous blooms and dramatic foliage, even familiar garden favorites can combine to create something that feels truly whimsical and enchanting.
