Suggestions for plants in pots & for ground cover

I've been in my house for 3 years and when I moved in, the garden was completely overgrown with ivy & bindweed so I've been gradually sorting it out and planting new things. It's fairly small and on 2 levels - the top section is completely paved, so I've been putting some plants in pots so you can see something from the house, and the lower half is partly paved with beds around the edge (very poor soil - I've put bags & bags of compost on it to try and make it better!). I've finished most of it, I'm just looking for a few suggestions for a couple of spaces I haven't filled yet.

In the lower section, the bed along the side is full of herbs and I've planted clematis and jasmine against the back wall to climb up a trellis. This bed along the back has a large acer in the centre, and on the right hand side I've planted some sweetcorn, carrots and strawberries. The problem area is the left of the back bed - I planted some spring and summer bulbs last year, but although some of the spring bulbs came up in April-May, none of the summer ones have grown. I think it's because we went on holiday in May/June and when we came home that bed was absolutely full of weeds so maybe the bulbs couldn't get through. I'd quite like to plant something in this bed to try and prevent more weeds from taking over, but I'm worried this would stop the bulbs from growing in the future. Does anyone have any suggestions for plants that would provide some ground cover but wouldn't prevent the bulbs from coming up next year? Preferably something that doesn't doesn't take too much looking after and doesn't spread too much as it's only a small bed (about 3.5' x 1'). It gets sun in the morning and late afternoon but is shady in the middle of the day.

The other space I have is a couple of long rectangular pots on the upper paved section - I'd ideally like to plant something that will flower in spring/early summer and that won't get bigger than about 2' (preferably something that will happily flower year after year without me needing to do much to it!). I already have pansies, lilies, heuchera, pieris and some night scented stock in pots along this section. It's quite shady up there and rarely gets a lot of sun.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

 

recommend posting photos as the pros tend to respond more with them

 

Welcome to the forum Rosa.
For your upper terrace I didn't see you mention any bulbs.
Daffodils will give you a lovely show in the spring and not get too tall.
Have a look at the different varieties as they come in earlies and lates as it were.
Muscari also flowers for a long.
You can move your pots to an out of the way corner when the display is over.

 

Hello Rosa ....

For low growing grouind cover you could try hardy geraniums of which there are many, also Epimediums which are not so floreiferous but the leaves often change colour. Heucheras and Tellimas also good inpots for repeat flowering but there are many more; I prefer shrubs inpots if keeping them there over 'years'.

Best of luck anyway...