Liatris spicata I believe

It sure am!

gee you people are so CLEVER! (I gather you two are the first off the mark!) thanks a million .. see, I couldn't find it anywhere else without a clue... and if I'm really nice to my neighbour does it propagate?

and I don't know on this site what the conventions are - when i thought somebody else found a yellow pretty flowered plant in the New Forest recently would it have been permissible to say I thought it might be a rhododendron? Or since I don't really know should I have shut up?(I did)

no, maybe don't answer... Have been reading your archi ves and it seems the most things that inspire all of us is love of plants...

and HATRED OF SLUGS!

Respond as you choose, you will soon be shot down if you are wrong. Though probably you will be given a parachute.
Liatris grows from 'bulbs' Easy enough to buy a packet in this country, not so sure about in France. You can grow it from seed too, takes a while to reach flowering size though. Perhaps your neighbour will let you take some.
I don't hate slugs.

'I don't hate slugs' this is a very strong statement and I admire you Owdboggy

I can usually live with them also especially when they arrive in my compost bin (unlike an erstwhile neighbour, who used to lie in wait and go out with a sharpened pair of scissors at night and cut them in half ,yuk) but I have to admit that, sometimes... because I really need to eat the veggies of which they've deprived me (courgettes & beans, this week)... - SALT or BLEACH or a GUILLOTINE! even BEER is too good...

I enjoy the questions and answers, you learn so much.....and if its something I grow often that has a problem (like black bottom on tomatoes) then I can commiserate or help if I can......but I bow to the knowledge of some on here who are better than any encyclopedia.......give me Goypedia any day!

There's nothing wrong with offering an opinion on a problem or an ID question, Monjardinira - I still do but I'm not always right, so it depends how easy you are with being wrong, lol!
If your neighbour will let you, this plant can be divided in spring, so you could just keep a little clump for yourself.

It also comes in white by the way.

aH, HA, Bamboo, thanks for this, I'm so often wrong that in my old age I've I hope learnt to 'live and learn' (who decides what's 'wrong', anyway - none of the plants in my garden read books, as far as I know, though I have to admit I like to go out in my nightie early of a dewy morning and tell them what they are!) -

I'll cosy up to my neighbour if she comes to visit next month and see if she'll share her plant... I badly need some things to take the place of the weeds I'm tackling!

re knowledge, none of us knows everything and surely the fun is finding out... if I've stepped on anyone's wellington boots (sorry, 'le chameau' boots, here, v. trendy but v.good!) I apologise.

er, did you people think that it WAS a rhododendron in the New Forest in that post? if not, what, please?

all best, MJ

I don't think the post was one I saw, so I don't know how to find it now. If it was a wild plant, I'd be about as likely to know what it was as I would be to fly to the moon, lol.