There's usually not a lot to say about car parks – other than the spaces are getting smaller and/or some cars are getting bigger.

But while chatting with a chum outside the Co-op in Pewsey, my eye wandered and the next thing she knew she was being dragged across the car park. The object we were heading for was hidden in a corner and probably not noticed by most people there.

It was a Magnolia grandiflora in full flower and what a sight it was. The flowers are a creamy white and the size of dinner plates, the petals being thick and almost glaucous – and the scent! Wonderful! A mix of lemon/vanilla and something else unidentifiable.

Most magnolias are spring flowerers and can be clobbered by pesky late frosts. But not this beauty. The best form is Magnolia grandiflora ‘Exmouth’ which produces flowers early on its life.

They are quite slow growers. They don’t need the acidic soil that so many other Magnolias prefer and as long as there is a decent depth of topsoil, they will cope well with underlying chalk. They prefer a sheltered position and you will often see them grown as wall specimens on large, old houses where they will eventually reach a height of 30ft or so.

We are fast approaching the end of summer and the start of autumn. This is a brilliant time to be thinking about planting anything permanent – trees, shrubs, roses, fruit, herbaceous perennials – because the soil is warm and moist, thanks to the rain we had through August. Get stuff in before the end of October and it will have a really good start, putting down its roots before the winter comes along.

Start by surveying your own patch. How did it do this year? What did well and what didn’t? The things that didn’t, need serious thought.

Did you plant them correctly? Some people just dig a hole and bung the thing in – live or die, they say, which is not the best approach!

The root system is the key. When you take the plant out of the pot, whatever it is, look at the rootball. Some plants, like herbaceous stuff, will have a lot of fibrous roots that have sometimes formed a thick, almost impenetrable mass. This usually indicates that the plant has been in the pot for quite some time and if left like that will not thrive. Tease things about the place with your fingers, underneath as well, to encourage new root development.

On occasion the fingers might not do the trick, in which case get a knife and run it down the sides of the root mass.

With shrubs and trees, there might be thicker pale-coloured roots visible on the surface of the compost. If these are running around in circles then, if left like that, they will simply continue to go around, not actually developing anything new.

Try hard not to break any of these but tease them away from compost before planting. Make sure the planting hole is the same depth as the pot and twice as wide and incorporate some muck into it.