The beauty of having a flower garden should not end in the spring.  For a full burst of fresh flowers in September and early October, fall-blooming bulbs do the job!  Early August (always planning ahead) is the time to order two of my favorites that flower just a few weeks after planting: 

Crocus speciosus has vibrant violet flowers, lighter center, brilliant orange stamens, 4-6 inches high. Plant several hundred for effective massing. They last for weeks in the garden or peeking up through groundcover such as periwinkle. 

And you cant go wrong with the fall-blooming Colchicum The Giant, which has large (3 inch) lilac/pink flowers on 4 to 5 inch stems.  The Giant is so eager to flower that it will bloom in your garage if you dont plant it in your garden quickly. 

Another lovely, September-blooming addition to any landscape is lycoris radiata, the red spider lily. With clusters of coral/red azalea-type flowers the size of a small grapefruit atop a 15-inch tall stem, these surprise lilies seem to pop out of the ground from nowhere.  Plant in part to full sun, fice inches deep. You can plant other low-growing perennials or seeds on top of them, so that you arent left with bare ground when the lilies are dormant.  Hardy in our zone these spider lilies will bloom next fall as opposed to the two described above that you can enjoy this year.

Good to know: If you order lycoris radiata from www.KVBwholesale.com (item #60055), the cost is 25 bulbs for $15 or 100 for $48; at other mail-order nurseries, they go for $3 to $7 each. Call 1.800.552.9996 to order KVBs wholesale catalogue which contains many, many more wonderful plants and bulbs at wholesale prices.

Masses, or drifts, of flower color is a wonderful way to make a statement in your garden, rather than one of these and one of those.  Be sure to order many of these bulbs for greater impact.