Potted Lilly Companions Please

Hello all,

I want to grow some Lillies in a pot, but as beautiful as they are, I'm always left a bit flat once flowered, as they kick a lot of wow for only a short space of time. I don't really want to have a flower pot taken up for just a month or so's flowering.

Has anyone planted other plants in with their Lillies? And, if so, what ones? I want to maximise the floral time and could do without my pots looking empty for 10 months of the year. Is there anything I can put in that will flower for longer, giving a longer season of interest, that the Lillies will then grow through?

You might be able to grow spring bulbs, or other small Spring-flowering plants. I haven't actually tried that myself.

I have tried growing climbers up the stems of tall lilies. I thought it would be interesting to grow a blue-flowering climber (Ipomoea) up a tall orange lily.

I found 3 problems: Lilies have a short flowering period, so it's difficult to synchronise flowering times. Also lilies also like a rich compost, and the climber I used produced a lot of foliage, and not many flowers. The most severe problem was that the leaves of the climber tended to suffocate the lily. So I got rid of the climber, before the lily came to flower. This was my attempt...

The best way to find out what works is to try something and see what happens.

I also have 2 big pots with giant lilies and would love to know what else I could plant there; trailing lobelia perhaps, Verbena Bonariensis keeps self seeding there, but too late in the season to do much.