@bédé gravel is a good mulch for certain plants, like alpines which don't like having wet necks. Roses prefer compost or rotted manure. That advice is often given in programmes like GW and magazines and books about gardening.
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
@CatDouch you also need to clear the stones from around your roses. Stones/pebbles/cobbles in summer will absorb and hold onto the heat and damage/potentially kill your roses.
Often we are told to mulch to keep the moisture in, with stones being one of the suggestions. Do you have any backing for your statement.
Ross is right, or at least in very hot summers in full sun positions. Cobbles and hard paved surfaces nearby do absorb sun and reflect heat back onto plants. Unlikely to permanently damage or kill your roses in a normal UK summer, but in sustained temperatures 30-40c you may get some cane scorch and faster frying blooms. I have a rose bed backing onto a short stone retaining wall and in summer I have to water there more frequently and hose down the wall to cool it off.
Pebbles do make applying manure or compost mulch difficult and an organic mulch to retain moisture is more beneficial as it provides nutrients too.
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
Update to my Malvern Hills saga … it has limped on, looking very sickly and spindly, despite a lot of mollycoddling! It hasn’t even grown as big as the wooden cagey thing that comes with the rose. All the growth is soft and the leaves just die and drop off and no buds.
So yesterday I phoned David Austin and after queuing for about 20 minutes on the phone (by which time I was fully wound up and prepared for a fight) I spoke to someone who immediately agreed to send me out a replacement. I just wish they’d listened when I contacted them in February, it was obviously an unhealthy specimen, and @Marlorena and @Busy-Lizzie you were totally correct!!
I'm pleased for you that they are now replacing it, but I'll guess at what's happened there, looking at your rose today...
In rare cases, the rootstock can wither and die. Usually the rose grafted onto it dies with it, but if the rose can develop its own roots quick enough, it can hold on for dear life until it gets itself established. Austins are very good at developing their own roots, usually easy to strike from cuttings.. During this period the rose looks almost dead, lifeless, but Spring makes those own roots grow and when it's got sufficient to sustain itself, the leaves grow and the plant starts to develop, which is what you're seeing there now... Own root roses are very slow initially, but I can see a bud on it, and I think with some sequestered iron or Miracle Gro, which is good for revitalising ailing roses, you could see this rose grow away...
That’s interesting @Marlorena it sounds like I could end up with two Malvern Hills at this rate. I’ll give it a feed with your suggested feed and see how it fares and I might be able to find another space for the new one 👍
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Pebbles do make applying manure or compost mulch difficult and an organic mulch to retain moisture is more beneficial as it provides nutrients too.
In rare cases, the rootstock can wither and die. Usually the rose grafted onto it dies with it, but if the rose can develop its own roots quick enough, it can hold on for dear life until it gets itself established. Austins are very good at developing their own roots, usually easy to strike from cuttings..
During this period the rose looks almost dead, lifeless, but Spring makes those own roots grow and when it's got sufficient to sustain itself, the leaves grow and the plant starts to develop, which is what you're seeing there now...
Own root roses are very slow initially, but I can see a bud on it, and I think with some sequestered iron or Miracle Gro, which is good for revitalising ailing roses, you could see this rose grow away...
If not too late, I'd give that another chance..