Someone asked in the garden club FB group for a list of bulbs to plant in fall — I’m not a garden designer, but here’s what I plant, in case it’s helpful, coming up in roughly this order:
Early spring:
– hellebores (not bulbs, but first perennials) (white, pinks, purples, greens)
– snowdrops (white)
– winter aconite (yellow)
– scilla (blue)
– crocus tommasinianus (species crocuses) (purple, white, yellow, striped purple)
– chionodoxa / glory-of-the-snow (pale blue, pink, purple)
Mid-spring:
– Grecian windflower / anemone blanda
– hyacinths (white, pink, purple, blue)
– checkered (dark purple) and pure white fritillaries
– muscari / grape hyacinth (dark blue, pale blue, white)
– daffodils
Late spring:
– fritillaria persica (dark purple) (and planning to add an orange and a yellow fritillary next year)
– Virginia bluebells (native perennial)
– pulmonaria (perennial)
– tulips
– bleeding heart (perennial)
– English bluebells
– English wood hyacinths / Spanish bluebells (v. confusing names!)
Early summer:
– lilies
– irises
– alliums
– gladiolus
Late summer:
– dahlias
– hardy begonias (different from annual begonia)
– cannas (haven’t planted these yet myself, on list to try)
– crocosmias (haven’t planted these yet myself, on list to try)
I’m sure I’m forgetting some. 🙂 Note that some of these, like the tulips, come up at different times depending on variety, so if you get early, middle, and late tulips, you have tulips for a long, long time. Most of the little spring bulbs, though, are ephemerals — here for a week or two, and then gone until next year.