Oh, I wrote a whole article about why it's better to plant perennials in the fall than in the spring! And already the fall sales are starting of everything they didn't sell during the spring.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1474/
Right now, outside my window, is a display of daylilies, achillea, hardy geranium, monarda and coreopsis. Where in MA are you moving to? Come take them away, the whole garden needs to be divided!
In the spring we have creeping phlox and geum, and basket-of-gold. Later in the fall we have helenium and chrysanthemums and asters.
Joann is right about fall planted bulbs - it's a New England fall tradition.
It sort of kind of depends on how long you'll be staying - is this a permanent move? If so, then you can invest in shrubs that may take a while to grow to flowering size/age, like lilacs, peonies, neither of which can grow in Florida! (I have a lilac in a pot which has not bloomed yet - I have nowhere to plant it.)
We do trade seeds and plants (there's a get-together at nutsfordaylily's place this Sunday, the 19th). We live closer to each other than folks in other places (is that fair to say?) anyway, some kind of trade seems to happen about once a month. Oh, and because we have a real winter, we do wintersowing after Christmas! So we collect seeds now, from friends, from catalogs, from ripe plants in restaurants, I've heard!
Plus the Northeast Forum is The Best, right, folks?
