Container has an addChild() that takes a node… as does GuiControl. The point is that if you attach a child directly to the Panel then Lemur can’t know about it. You must pass it to one of the methods that cares about a layout. (Those methods will not work like you want without the child have its own GuiControl anyway.)
To just make a JME spatial clickable just add a Lemur mouse listener to it. There was even a lemur gem for this.