Can you help me identify gift plants, please?

[tonyg]

I'm with Maggi and Rodger.  Plant in haste and repent forever is the misquote that comes to mind   I was once given a piece of a 'new' tropeaolum by a friend who worked for a big nursery.  15 years on and it is still one of my worst ineradicable weeds

Some of the 'foreigners' that Maggi refers to have the possibility of looking like they might be native without the risks attached to some 'easy' plants.  Good luck with your rockery, look around the pages of this forum and you will find infinite possibilities

[Diane Whitehead]

I managed to stop the spread of a Houttuynia cordata Chameleon that
I planted - it was moving fast even in my dry garden.  I saw it sited
cleverly in another garden - in a pot on a rock in a pond.  It looked
gorgeous but couldn't escape.

[David Shaw]

If you have the space is there anything too wrong with 'enthusiastic' alpines. At the moment parts of our garden are a wonderful sea of blue and white with campanula and that white stonecrop thingy. We have yellow and blue sisyrinchium in season and earlier the yellow draba makes a wonderful impression - not to mention the Fairy Foxglove. When any of these get to be just too much we go round with a bucket and haul loads of it out quite easily.
I suppose main 'pain' in our garden is the yellow Meconopsis cambrica that we inherited. Even then the lovely yellow flowers are worth the effort of keeping it under control.

[Sinchets]

David, with my Aberdeenshire born Mother, I am well placed to help you with this one..... a quine is a lass, a girl, a young woman.
 Maggi  ( often called a sonsy deem!!)

Looks very much like the Norwegian word for woman: Kvinne

It is an interesting word quean imeaning "young, robust woman," it is from the Old English cwene "woman," [also "female serf, hussy, prostitute" ]. It is related to the word queen, from Old English cwen "queen, female ruler of a state, woman, wife." The modern use of the  word has become more specialised, but is still used in its original sense in the Doric dialect of Aberdeenshire.

[David Shaw]

Simon, I assume that the words in the square brackets are there for technical correctness rather than personal popularity?

[Sinchets]

In all my time in Aberdeen, I never heard it used in those ways- though presumably it was at some point in time. 

[David Nicholson]

David, with my Aberdeenshire born Mother, I am well placed to help you with this one..... a quine is a lass, a girl, a young woman.
 Maggi  ( often called a sonsy deem!!)

Looks very much like the Norwegian word for woman: Kvinne

It is an interesting word quean imeaning "young, robust woman," it is from the Old English cwene "woman," [also "female serf, hussy, prostitute" ]. It is related to the word queen, from Old English cwen "queen, female ruler of a state, woman, wife." The modern use of the  word has become more specialised, but is still used in its original sense in the Doric dialect of Aberdeenshire.

I find the source of words fascinating (should I get a life!) Further research suggests that "cwene" was derived from the Proto-Germanic (pre-cursor of all the Germanic derived languages) "kweni" (with a 'twiddle above the e) meaning woman/wife along with Old Norse "kvaen" with the ae forming a dipthong and Saxon "qvan" (with a twiddle above the a) Well, it is raining!

[Rodger Whitlock]

If you have the space is there anything too wrong with 'enthusiastic' alpines?

*if* you have unlimited space, no, there's not a thing wrong with the thugs, but most of us do not have unlimited space. And as our interests grow, we want to plant less robust things in the space occupied by thugs. I understand your point, but to any beginner I'd say avoid the thugs because sooner or later they *will* be in the way or they will start to choke out more delicate things.

The smaller the garden, the more careful you have to be about this matter.

[Sinchets]

David, with my Aberdeenshire born Mother, I am well placed to help you with this one..... a quine is a lass, a girl, a young woman.
 Maggi  ( often called a sonsy deem!!)

Looks very much like the Norwegian word for woman: Kvinne

It is an interesting word quean imeaning "young, robust woman," it is from the Old English cwene "woman," [also "female serf, hussy, prostitute" ]. It is related to the word queen, from Old English cwen "queen, female ruler of a state, woman, wife." The modern use of the  word has become more specialised, but is still used in its original sense in the Doric dialect of Aberdeenshire.

I find the source of words fascinating (should I get a life!) Further research suggests that "cwene" was derived from the Proto-Germanic (pre-cursor of all the Germanic derived languages) "kweni" (with a 'twiddle above the e) meaning woman/wife along with Old Norse "kvaen" with the ae forming a dipthong and Saxon "qvan" (with a twiddle above the a) Well, it is raining!

Don't worry, David. You are not alone- this kind of thing gets me through a snowy winter.

[David Nicholson]

Simon, anything's better than watching British TV

[Sinchets]

You should try Bulgarian TV- American, Spanish, Brazilian or Italian tragi-coms dubbed into Bulgarian- enough to make you lose the will...

[Aberdeenshire Quine]

Hmmm.... I think I might get to like it here

Thank you for all the advice (seriously).  I have taken it all to heart. I will be careful.

Now, about the cats.....

[Maggi Young]

Now, about the cats.....

 Oh, crikey..... yes, you almost certainly WILL get to like it here!! 
M

[David Nicholson]

I can recommend. and after that I'll keep my head down