u/Juan-Sheet

Visited Titchfield Abbey today and was pleasantly surprised by how much there is to see — and it’s** free to enter!**

The abbey dates back to 1231/32, when it was founded by Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, for Premonstratensian canons. It was one of the last Premonstratensian houses founded in England.

It also has some impressive royal connections. Richard II and Henry V visited, with Henry V staying here before setting off for his campaigns in France. Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou also spent part of their wedding celebrations here. Later, following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Henry VIII granted the abbey to Thomas Wriothesley, who transformed it into a grand Tudor mansion known as Place House. Later royal visitors included Edward VI, Elizabeth I and Charles I.

One of the things I particularly liked was seeing how the medieval abbey and Tudor mansion have effectively become one building. The huge fortified-looking gatehouse was built straight across the nave of the old abbey church in the 16th century.

There are also some fantastic surviving details inside, including an impressive medieval tiled pavement, which was actually buried beneath the later mansion courtyard for more than 400 years and rediscovered during excavations in 1923. One of the pavements carries a Latin inscription reminding the canons to remember the poor before eating.

The whole place has a great atmosphere — particularly walking through the old rooms, doorways and towers and seeing the layers of medieval and Tudor history still visible in the stonework.

Definitely worth a visit if you’re in Hampshire and interested in history. And you can’t really complain about the price! 😄

I have just booked a two week return flight to Boa Vista, very excited to come and explore the island, it looks beautiful!

I’m sure I’ll have plenty of questions, if it’s ok to ask them here?

Flourishing a little later than usual here in southern England.

Photos from Winchester, Farley Mount, Beaulieu, Bucklers Hard, Lymington, Isle of Wight, Portsmouth.

I think they understood the assignment. 🙋🌱 😁

The original issue was simply that my bathroom door hinges had gone rusty, so I replaced these. While I was at it, I noticed the old ceiling extractor fan was noisy, fairly ineffective and looked a bit dated (no window in bathroom).

One thing led to another…

I decided to replace the whole extraction setup rather than just swapping the ceiling fan.

What I installed

Manrose MF100T 100mm inline timer fan
Blauberg adjustable circular ceiling valve
Re-used existing insulated flexible ducting
Aluminium foil tape on every duct joint for an airtight seal on top of suitable jubilee clips
Bungee suspension of the fan in the loft to isolate vibration from the roof trusses

The process

Removed the old ceiling extractor.
Installed the inline fan in the loft between the bathroom ceiling valve and the external vent.
Reused the existing switched live and timer wiring.
Sealed every duct connection with foil tape.
Suspended the fan on bungees so it’s effectively floating rather than transmitting vibration into the timber.
Removed the old wall plugs from the ceiling.
Filled the old fixing holes and cable notch with Toupret Patch & Repair filler.
Sanded everything flush.
Painted the repaired ceiling with three coats of Dulux Trade Vinyl Matt using a mini roller before refitting the new ceiling valve.

The results

Honestly, I’m amazed.

The fan is dramatically quieter than the old ceiling-mounted unit. It genuinely reminds me of the sort of ventilation you get in a good hotel bathroom - just a smooth, low background hum instead of the usual roar.

Performance is also much better. After a normal shower the mirror is almost clear by the time I’ve dried myself, and within a couple of minutes the room is completely clear and fresh. Leaving the bathroom door slightly ajar after showering seems to help the make-up air flow too.

The ceiling repair has blended in really well, so there’s no evidence the old fan was ever there.

Probably the most satisfying part was learning new DIY skills. None of it was especially difficult, but there’s something really rewarding about tackling a project you’ve never done before, solving each little problem as you go, and ending up with something that genuinely improves the house.

All because I wanted to replace a couple of rusty hinges…

Boy, that escalated quickly. 😄

Hope this is allowed here?

Thought I’d share my little DIY project.

The front of my house originally had an overgrown lawn/weed patch with a few shrubs that had outgrown the space. It also doubled as the local neighbourhood cat toilet, which was the final straw!

I decided to strip it back completely and create a cleaner, more contemporary, low-maintenance feature.

What I did:
Removed one of the larger shrubs beneath the gas meter box to open up the space.

Kept the existing shrubs that still worked with the design.

Levelled and prepared the soil.

Installed heavy-duty weed membrane, cutting access around an inspection cover and the two remaining shrubs.

Added 500 kg of 13–20 mm Cotswold Buff chippings (25 × 20 kg bags), transported home in my Renault 4 over two trips. Left around 60 kg spare for future topping up.

Positioned a Japanese acer acquired from Gumtree in the centre as the focal point.

Added a warm white solar spotlight to uplight the acer and create some evening ambience.

The whole project came in at around £225, including the gravel, membrane, pegs, lighting and Acer.

Really pleased with how it turned out. It looks much cleaner, should be virtually maintenance-free apart from the odd weed, and—hopefully—it’s no longer the neighbourhood’s favourite cat litter tray!

Before and after photos below. Feedback welcome!

On May 30th I had to undertake major surgery on my 185cm tall dieffenbachia, after it suffered a stem trauma during transportation.

I tried various propagation methods and they’re all showing very promising signs, I am so pleased!

Had to do a 100% charge for a long drive today. After driving 100 miles so far it’s dropped by 150 miles of range 🙄

What’s the best figure you’ve had?

Loving the built-in caddy area in the Renault 4 - perfect for a stash of 🍻

Bought a GardePro trail camera after discovering mysterious deposits under my newly-relocated willow tree and wanting to identify the culprit.

The first 24 hours of footage consisted of:

Me watering the garden.
Me watering the garden again.
A magpie.
A tree blowing in the wind.

I was expecting David Attenborough and got CCTV footage of horticulture.

I then repositioned the camera to avoid the moving branches and, at 01:21 AM, finally caught the culprit red-handed (or should that be red-pawed).

Meet “Trevor” – an unidentified cat that had apparently adopted my willow tree as his personal latrine.

I’ve now fortified the area with sticks and bamboo stakes and will be continuing surveillance to see whether Trevor:

A) Gives up.
B) Finds a way through.
C) Simply opens another branch of his toileting operation elsewhere in the garden.

For anyone considering a GardePro trail cam, I’m genuinely impressed. The night footage is much better than I expected, and despite the lack of remote viewing, there’s something quite fun about reviewing the clips each morning to see what happened while you were asleep.

Never thought a drunken Amazon purchase would turn into a suburban wildlife documentary and a forensic investigation into cat poo! 🤣

Thought I’d share my accidental Dieffenbachia propagation experiment!

I acquired a very tall, top-heavy Dieffenbachia a month back secondhand. During a planned repot, as the substrate looked pretty dreadful and it was sat in a non-draining ceramic pot, I discovered both stems rotted through at the base and had actually detached from the root ball, possibly from transportation trauma. Not exactly the repotting session I’d envisaged…

Rather than binning it, I decided to try multiple propagation methods and treat it as an experiment:

🌱 Original root ball
Repotted into fresh substrate and hoped for the best.

🌱 Top cuttings
Took clean cuts from the leafy tops, let them callus for 24 hours, then rooted directly into substrate.

🌱 Cane cuttings
Cut the remaining stems into various sections and planted some vertically and some horizontally in a chunky, airy mix (roughly 70/30 coir and perlite), after letting them callus.

The canes were surprisingly healthy internally - firm and full of moisture, almost cucumber-like when cut.

Fast forward just over 2½ weeks, and the biggest surprise is that the original root ball has already pushed up new growth! One of the water-rooting cuttings also developed little nodules very quickly, which I’m hoping are root initials.

It’s been a good reminder that even when a plant feels like a complete loss, there can still be a lot of life left in it. Worst case, I learn something. Best case, I end up with several new Dieffenbachias to keep and gift to friends!

Has anyone else had success propagating Dieffenbachia using multiple methods at the same time? Which approach proved most successful?

I’ll update this post further if I have any success!

Spotted in UK, I understand from AI these are fairly common? Very leaf-like, cool dude!