Colour is all around us, and yet there are times of the year when you look out of the window at the garden and see only versions of green. I call these periods green lulls.

These gaps in colour tell you something important about your garden. They usually indicate either unbalanced planting — too much interest concentrated in one season — or that maintenance has slipped and the more aggressive plants have quietly taken over the space intended for others.

Rather than waiting for next season's plantings, there's an approach I don't usually recommend but that genuinely works in a pinch: buy flowering plants from the garden centre and pot them up immediately.

It's not economical and it doesn't align with my usual design principles, but this is an emergency. Colour matters for wellbeing, and a few well-placed pots of begonias or geraniums can transform the view from the kitchen window in an afternoon.

I once saw a client's faded Alchemilla mollis in the foreground completely redeemed by three pots of vibrant begonias placed just behind. The effect was immediate.

Containers are a sticking plaster, not a cure. If your garden hits the same green lull every year, that's a planting problem — and a planting plan is the answer.

A well-designed scheme considers every month: spring bulbs, early-flowering shrubs, summer perennials, late-season colour, and winter structure. The garden should give you something to look at in every season, not just June.