Bold, lily-like flowers on bare stems at the end of July into the beginning of August, when nothing much is in flower float above lower shrubs and ground covers. Poor soil, little water? No problem, these things grow out in fields with no care at all, the perfect water conserving plant.
Culture
Basically, no fuss: plant the bulbs where they’ll grow, mark the spot and forget about them. You can divide the bulbs after flowering, but they don’t like it and will likely sulk for a few years before blooming again. In Mediterranean California, they grow with natural winter and spring rains, pushing out lush leaves that will die down until the next rainy season. They don’t need summer water.
These plants are not considered invasive, although they do tend to naturalize readily, forming large clumps unless divided.
Companion plants
There are two choices for companion plants: low things for the lilies to grow out of and taller things to give them a backdrop. Any companion plant you choose should have similar low-water cultural requirements.
I like large to medium sized prickly pear cactus as a backdrop. It’s one of those strange, therefore interesting combinations: delicate lilies in front of bold cactus. Although it seems improbable, their cultural requirements are similar: the bulbs wait out the dry season underground, and the cacti store water in their pads.
California fuchsia is another interesting choice. If you’re lucky you might have a few lingering red flowers on these plants when the lilies leap into bloom. Don’t plant the lilies in the fuchsias, since the lily leaves will smother them in spring.
Gaura can work, if you want more of a white-pink soft color palette. The gauras will wave in the wind against the steadfast lilies, delicate white against bolder pink.
Burgundy New Zealand flax can be a decent backdrop. Light pink floating in front of deep burgundy makes for good contrast. This works better along the coast where the flax is less likely to burn and look ratty.
Walls: although they’re not plants, if you’re doing a kind of minimalist garden you can put your lilies in a sunny place in front of a wall. Paint the wall deep blue, mulch with gravel (no weed barrier) and you’ll have something that will keep people talking longer than the 2-3 weeks the plants are in flower. They’ll talk again in spring when those daffodils you planted in the same area go into flower, yellow gold against blue. You can add other bulbs, too – brodiaea, sparaxis, freesia… as long as they’re compatible with your lilies. You could paint the wall any deep color – I just happen to like blue, but a deep gray will intensify the colors of any plants growing in front of it.
Photographing your lilies
Do not photograph these in the sun. You need soft, even light to make them glow. It’s best if there’s no sun anywhere in your photograph – a dark background will make the blooms stand out.
Use a large aperture, since a shallow depth of field gives an ethereal, soft quality that works well with flowers. You’ll have to decide which part of the flower you want in focus, however, since most will be softly blurred.
If you want all parts of the flowers in focus, you might have to sacrifice a stem, bring it inside, place an interesting deep color or gray backdrop behind the flowers, play with lighting (multiple lights are best). You can use a small aperture (higher f/ number) or do post processing stacking from multiple shots with different focusing points (manual focus required for this). Backlighting with a bit of fill gives good results, but you can play with everything except face-on (lighting anything directly face-on gives results similar to your favorite driver’s license photo).