What to Plant With Lilies: Best Companion Plants

Great Companion Plants for Lilies: What to Plant With Lilies

Lilies are spectacular when they flower, but the most successful lily borders rarely rely on lilies alone. Their upright stems, relatively narrow footprint, dramatic blooms, and long-lived post-flowering foliage make them unusually easy to weave through perennial borders – provided their neighbors are chosen for more than color.

The best companion plants for lilies share compatible light, soil, moisture, and drainage requirements. They also earn their place in the border by doing something useful: covering the lower stems, introducing a contrasting flower shape, adding foliage texture, attracting pollinators, extending the season before or after lily bloom, or carrying the garden visually while lily foliage ripens.

A plant can therefore look wonderful beside a lily in a photograph and still be a poor garden partner. A vigorous grass may overwhelm the bulb zone. A dry-loving perennial may resent the watering needed by lilies. A dense tall plant may hide too much lily foliage. Conversely, two plants with slightly different preferences can work beautifully when their positions within the border are adjusted.

This guide goes beyond a list of attractive pairings. It explains why each companion works, which lilies it suits best, where it belongs in the planting, and what tradeoffs to consider.

What Makes a Good Companion Plant for Lilies?

Most garden lilies perform best in well-drained soil with reasonably consistent moisture during active growth; soil fertility and pH preferences vary somewhat by lily group.

Their upright growth habit creates natural opportunities for layering. Low plants can occupy the foreground, medium-height perennials can weave around the stems, and airy plants can rise through the border without forming a dense screen around the lilies.

A useful companion normally performs one or more of these jobs:

• Covers the lower layer without burying the lily foliage.
• Extends the season before or after lily bloom.
• Adds contrasting shape or texture to the large lily flowers.
• Connects separate lily groups into a coherent planting.
• Supports pollinators during other periods of the season.

1 Hardy Geraniums: Excellent Lower-Layer Companions

Hardy geraniums are among the most versatile plants to grow around lilies. Their mounded or spreading foliage creates a soft lower layer while lily flowers rise clearly above it, and many bloom for considerably longer than an individual lily cultivar.

Good candidates include:

• Geranium ‘Rozanne’ – violet-blue flowers over a very long season, excellent beneath pink, white, yellow, orange, or burgundy lilies.
• Geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’ – sky-blue flowers from late spring into midsummer, useful for bridging the gap before many lilies reach peak bloom.
• Compact cranesbills – useful where a broad-spreading cultivar would occupy too much of a small border.

The practical advantage is height. These geraniums soften the lower stems without creating another tall floral mass beside the lilies.

Leave a clear opening around emerging lily shoots in spring. Geranium foliage should flow around the lilies rather than directly over the point where each stem emerges.

2 Nepeta and Salvia: Blue-Violet Contrast for Sunny Borders

Nepeta and perennial salvias bring a color that true lilies cannot provide themselves: blue to violet. Their small flowers and narrow spikes also provide welcome contrast with the much larger flowers of Lilium.

• Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’ – a broad lavender-blue mound that looks particularly good beneath tall warm-colored lilies.
• Nepeta × faassenii ‘Junior Walker’ – a more compact option where ‘Walker’s Low’ would spread too widely.
• Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’ – violet-blue flowers on dark stems, excellent with orange, yellow, peach, and white lilies.
• Salvia nemorosa ‘Amethyst’ – lavender-pink flower spikes for softer pink, burgundy, or white combinations.

The principal tradeoff is moisture. Nepeta and many border salvias tolerate drier conditions once established than actively growing lilies prefer. Use them toward the freer-draining front or outer edge of the border, while placing lilies slightly farther inside where summer moisture remains more reliable.

3 Spring Bulbs and Alliums: Start the Border Before the Lilies

One of the most effective ways to use companion plants with lilies is through succession. The border should already be interesting before the lilies become dominant.

Start with low-growing spring bulbs such as:

• Snowdrops – Galanthus
• Crocus
• Grape hyacinths – Muscari
• Scillas
• Anemone blanda – Grecian Windflower
• Daffodils – Narcissus

These bulbs occupy the border when lilies are little more than emerging shoots. By the time their display fades, lily stems are rising and preparing to take over.

Ornamental alliums then create a particularly useful late-spring to early-summer bridge. Good choices include:

• Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ – rich violet globes on tall stems, ideal for weaving among early lilies.
• Allium ‘Globemaster’ – enormous violet spheres with strong architectural presence.

Do not pack different bulb systems tightly together. Interweave them in loose groups and leave enough soil around established lilies for root growth, maintenance, and eventual division.

4 Peonies and Roses: Classic Partners With Strong Structure

Peonies and roses work differently from low underplanting. They contribute substantial permanent masses of foliage around which groups of lilies can be positioned.

Peonies often make their main floral contribution before many garden lilies reach peak bloom, then remain as broad leafy mounds through summer. Useful cultivars include:

• Paeonia ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ – large soft-pink flowers followed by a substantial green mound.
• Paeonia ‘Coral Charm’ – earlier coral-peach flowers that combine beautifully with apricot, cream, or pink lilies.
• Paeonia ‘Karl Rosenfield’ – deep red flowers for richer, more dramatic schemes.

Plant lily bulbs beside or between peony clumps, not through the crown itself.

Roses offer a longer flowering season and an enormous choice of colors. Rosa ‘Gertrude Jekyll’, for example, combines rich pink flowers and strong fragrance with a long season of bloom.

Give lilies their own rooting space away from the rose crown and major woody roots. Roses are strong competitors for both moisture and nutrients.

5 Echinops, Verbena, and Agastache: Airy Summer Structure

These plants are particularly useful with tall lilies because they add height without necessarily creating a dense wall of foliage.

• Echinops ritro ‘Veitch’s Blue’ – steel-blue spherical flowers on branching stems. Excellent with white, orange, yellow, burgundy, and apricot lilies.
• Verbena bonariensis – tall, wiry stems topped by purple flower clusters. Its see-through habit allows lily flowers to remain visible through the planting.
• Verbena bonariensis ‘Meteor Shower’ – a shorter option for smaller borders.
• Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’ – lavender-blue flower spikes from midsummer into early fall, extending color after many lilies have finished.

Echinops and Agastache prefer particularly good drainage and tolerate drier conditions once established, so they make their best lily partners in sunny, freely drained borders.

Verbena bonariensis can self-seed generously and has naturalized beyond gardens in some regions. Check local invasive-plant guidance before using the species.

6 Agapanthus and Daylilies: Strong Summer Flowering Partners

Agapanthus and Hemerocallis form broad clumps of arching leaves below their flowers, making them useful where you want summer color and a substantial lower layer around taller lilies.

• Agapanthus ‘Donau’ – blue rounded flower heads in midsummer and late summer on stems about 2-3 ft. tall.
• Agapanthus ‘Peter Pan’ – a compact blue-flowered selection suited to the foreground of sunny borders.
• Hemerocallis ‘Stella de Oro’ – compact golden-yellow daylily with a particularly long flowering period from early summer onward.

Do not plant lily bulbs inside established Agapanthus or daylily crowns. Place the clumps beside the lilies so their arching foliage screens the lower stems while each plant retains its own root space.

7 Monarda and Helenium: Best for Moist, Richer Summer Borders

Not every sunny lily border is dry. Where soil remains reasonably moist but drains freely, Monarda and Helenium can provide strong midsummer and late-season color.

• Monarda ‘Jacob Cline’ – vivid red flowers from midsummer toward early fall, excellent for hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies.
• Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’ – deep orange-red flowers over a very long summer-to-fall season, particularly useful with yellow, orange, cream, or burgundy lilies.

Both become substantial plants, so use them as middle or background companions rather than tight underplanting.

Monarda also benefits from good air circulation. Do not surround lily stems and Monarda with a dense mass of additional foliage simply to make the border look full.

8 Heuchera, Astilbe, Ferns, and Hakonechloa: The Martagon Layer

Martagon lilies are particularly useful in light woodland and dappled shade, so their companion palette should be very different from that of lilies growing in a hot, exposed border.

• Heuchera – a low foliage layer available in green, silver, lime, bronze, burgundy, and almost black.
• Astilbe – finely divided foliage and feathery flower plumes for sites that remain moist but well drained.
• Ferns – excellent foliage contrast with the whorled leaves and recurved flowers of Martagons.
• Hakonechloa macra – cascading Japanese forest grass for moist, partly shaded conditions.
• Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’ – golden-variegated foliage that can illuminate a shaded Martagon planting.

Astilbe and Hakonechloa are particularly useful where summer moisture remains reliable. They should not be transferred automatically to a dry Asiatic or Trumpet border simply because the visual combination looks attractive.

9 Ornamental Grasses: Choose the Grass for the Site

“Ornamental grasses” is too broad to be a meaningful recommendation. Some grasses are drought-tolerant sun lovers; others thrive in moist shade. Some remain compact while others develop enormous root systems.

For sunny, freely drained lily borders:

• Stipa tenuissima – extremely fine foliage and silky flower stems that move around lilies without visually overpowering them.
• Stipa gigantea – a much larger architectural grass whose tall golden panicles rise above a comparatively low foliage mound.

For moist, partly shaded Martagon borders:

• Hakonechloa macra – cascading foliage and a preference for moisture and shade make it far more appropriate here than Stipa.

Stipa tenuissima can self-seed prolifically and is considered invasive in some regions. Check local guidance before planting it.

Large grasses should also be given their own footprint. Do not plant lily bulbs directly against a mature grass crown where root competition will become intense.

10 Asters, Chrysanthemums, and Other Late-Season Companions

Late-season plants are just as important as the companions flowering alongside the lilies. Once the lily flowers fade, their foliage should remain until it yellows naturally, so another layer of the border needs to take over visually.

The best late companions flower from late summer into fall, provide enough foliage to distract from ripening lily stems, and continue the border without forming such a dense mass that air circulation disappears.

Good choices include:

• Asters – blue, violet, pink, or white daisies from late summer into fall. They are especially useful after Oriental and Orienpet lilies because their branching flower stems create a completely different, lighter texture and provide valuable late-season pollinator forage.
• Chrysanthemums – one of the strongest choices for carrying a traditional perennial border deep into fall. Their dense mounds can visually screen aging lily stems, but give both plants enough space rather than planting chrysanthemums directly over the lily bulbs.
• Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’ – masses of golden-yellow flowers from midsummer into early fall on 2-3 ft. plants. It works especially well with white, pink, burgundy, or yellow lilies and provides a substantial middle layer as lily flowers disappear.
• Anemone × hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’ – elegant white flowers on wiry 3-4 ft. stems from late summer into fall. It is particularly useful in moist but well-drained borders and can create a graceful late-season continuation after pale or white lilies.
• Solidago rugosa ‘Fireworks’ – arching sprays of bright yellow flowers from late summer into fall. Its loose, cascading habit provides movement and strong pollinator value without repeating the flower forms used earlier in the border.
• Sedum ‘Autumn Fire’ – broad pink flower heads mature into deeper autumn tones and remain attractive after flowering. It is an excellent late-season option for sunny, freely drained lily borders, although its preference for drier conditions makes it less appropriate beside lilies in consistently moist soil.

Choose Companion Plants by Lily Type

Different lily groups have different strengths, flowering seasons, heights, and site preferences. Companion planting becomes much more useful when the recommendations are tied to the lily you are actually growing.

Best Companions for Asiatic and LA Lilies

Asiatic and LA lilies are generally useful in sunny borders and occupy the earlier portion of the main lily season. Their upright growth benefits from lower companions, while later perennials prevent the border from becoming empty after flowering.

• Geranium ‘Rozanne’ – long bloom and excellent lower-stem coverage.
• Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’ – lavender-blue color and a soft foreground mound.
• Salvia ‘Caradonna’ – narrow violet spikes contrast strongly with broad lily flowers.
• Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ – begins the transition into the early lily season.
• Hemerocallis ‘Stella de Oro’ – arching foliage and a long summer flowering period.

Best Companions for Martagon Lilies

Martagons are particularly valuable in light woodland and dappled shade. Their nodding flowers and whorled leaves suit a softer, foliage-rich planting style rather than the dry, exposed palette that works around many sunny hybrids.

• Hakonechloa macra – cascading foliage for moist shade.
• Heuchera – low foliage color without competing heavily with the flowers.
• Astilbe – feathery texture where soil remains moist.
• Ferns – natural woodland structure and contrasting foliage.
• Shade-tolerant hardy geraniums – a flowering lower layer.

Best Companions for Oriental Lilies

Oriental lilies produce some of the largest and most fragrant lily flowers and generally favor acidic soil more strongly than many other hybrid groups. Companion plants therefore need to fit both the visual scale and the soil conditions.

• Geranium ‘Rozanne’ – low violet-blue flowers beneath large Oriental blooms.
• Compatible clumping grasses – fine texture balances the very bold flowers.
• Roses – useful where soil requirements and root spacing are compatible.
• Asters – provide later flowers while Oriental lily foliage ripens.

Best Companions for Trumpet and Orienpet Lilies

Tall Trumpet and Orienpet lilies create strong vertical architecture. Their best companions provide a lower anchor or an airy second layer without hiding the lilies behind equally dense tall foliage.

• Stipa gigantea – tall golden panicles with relatively open upper growth.
• Verbena bonariensis – see-through purple flowers that weave between tall lily stems.
• Echinops ‘Veitch’s Blue’ – spherical blue flowers contrast with trumpet-shaped blooms.
• Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’ – long-flowering upright spikes in sunny, well-drained borders.
• Hardy geraniums and roses – provide substantial lower and middle layers.

Design for a Long Border Season, Not One Perfect Week

A successful lily border should behave like a relay. Spring bulbs begin the display. Peonies and alliums carry it toward early summer. Asiatic and LA lilies overlap with geraniums, Nepeta, and Salvia. Trumpets and Orienpets take over around midsummer, while later perennials, asters, Japanese anemones, Solidago, Sedum, chrysanthemums, and ornamental grasses keep the border alive as the lily season winds down.

A useful sequence is:

• Spring: snowdrops, crocus, Muscari, Scilla, Anemone, Narcissus.
• Late spring to early summer: peonies and ornamental alliums.
• Early to midsummer: Asiatic and LA lilies, geraniums, Nepeta, Salvia, roses.
• Midsummer: Trumpet lilies, Agapanthus, Hemerocallis, Monarda, Echinops.
• Mid to late summer: Oriental and Orienpet lilies, Agastache, Verbena, ornamental grasses.
• Late summer to fall: asters, chrysanthemums, Rudbeckia, Japanese anemones, Solidago, Sedum, and increasingly prominent ornamental grasses.

For the lily side of the sequence, see Gardenia’s When Do Lilies Bloom? Lily Bloom Calendar. For succession using lilies themselves, see Lilies for Long Summer Blooms.

Give Lilies Room: Roots, Spacing, and Air Circulation

Lilies are perennial bulbs with living roots. A nearby plant can compete with them even if the two look perfectly compatible above ground.

• Keep lily bulbs away from dense peony and rose crowns.
• Do not plant them inside mature Agapanthus or Hemerocallis clumps.
• Give large ornamental grasses their own root space.
• Control aggressive groundcovers before they engulf emerging lily shoots.
• Leave enough accessible soil that valuable lily clumps can eventually be lifted or divided.

This does not mean lilies need a ring of bare soil around them. The goal is to place neighboring plants so their crowns and most competitive roots are separated while their foliage overlaps visually.

A mixed cottage border can look wonderfully full, but fullness and congestion are not the same thing.

Lily leaves buried inside a dense mass of wet foliage dry more slowly after rain or irrigation. That is especially undesirable in humid gardens and where foliar disease is already a concern.

Use companions to frame and layer the lilies rather than fill every available inch. Allow the stems to emerge cleanly and leave enough space for light and air to reach the foliage, especially in humid or disease-prone gardens.

For lily-specific spacing guidance, see Gardenia’s Lily Planting Depth and Spacing Guide.

Color and Texture Come After Compatibility

Once the plants can genuinely share the site, color becomes the fun part.

Blue and violet are especially useful with lilies because clear blue is absent from commercially available true Lilium cultivars. Geraniums, Nepeta, Salvia, Echinops, Agastache, and Verbena can therefore introduce a color the lilies themselves cannot provide.

Warm orange, yellow, apricot, and red lilies become more vivid beside blue-purple flowers. Pink and white lilies create softer combinations. Burgundy lilies can be echoed with dark foliage or contrasted with silver grasses and pale blooms.

Texture is just as important. Huge Oriental flowers become more elegant beside fine grasses. Recurved Martagon flowers look natural above ferns and Hakonechloa. Tall Trumpets become even more architectural when airy Verbena or Echinops is allowed to float nearby rather than blocking them with another dense perennial.

What Should You Avoid Planting With Lilies?

There is no universal blacklist because lilies and garden conditions vary, but several types of neighbors deserve caution.

• Aggressive spreaders: dense rhizomes and rapidly expanding mats can occupy the bulb zone.
• Very thirsty plants: large root systems can leave lilies short of moisture while stems and buds are developing.
• Bog or wetland plants: most lilies need drainage rather than permanently saturated soil.
• Dense tall companions: plants that completely shade the lily foliage can interfere with bulb replenishment after flowering.
• Strongly incompatible soil preferences: especially important with acid-preferring Oriental lilies.
• Aggressive running grasses: their rhizomes can become extremely difficult to separate from lily bulbs.

Check Whether Your Exact Lily Combination Works

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bottom Line: Match, Layer, Extend

The best lily companions are not simply the flowers that look prettiest beside lilies. They are plants that can share the same garden successfully and make the border better beyond the lily’s own flowering period.

Start with light, soil, moisture, and drainage. Then consider mature size and root competition. Layer plants so lily foliage still receives light and air. Finally, use spring bulbs, summer perennials, grasses, and later flowers to create a border that changes naturally from spring through fall.

Hardy geraniums, Nepeta, and Salvia make excellent low and medium layers in sunny borders. Peonies, roses, Agapanthus, and Hemerocallis add body. Echinops, Verbena, and Agastache bring airiness and vertical contrast. Hakonechloa, Heuchera, Astilbe, and ferns suit woodland-style Martagon plantings. Asters, Helenium, chrysanthemums, and grasses carry the garden after the lilies have finished.

Gardenia’s simplest lily companion rule is worth remembering: Match → Layer → Extend. Match the site, layer the plants intelligently, and extend the garden season beyond the lilies themselves.

References

• Royal Horticultural Society – Lilies: How to Grow – lily site, soil, moisture, planting, and aftercare.
• North American Lily Society – Types of Lilies – characteristics of the major lily divisions.
• Gardenia – How to Choose Lilies – selecting lilies by site, season, height, fragrance, and use.
• Gardenia – When Do Lilies Bloom? Lily Bloom Calendar – flowering sequence across major lily groups.
• Gardenia – Lily Planting Depth and Spacing Guide – planting and spacing guidance by lily type.

Updated: August 2026 • Reviewed by Gardenia Editors