Is this even a rose?

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I am very new to gardening so please excuse me if this is a silly question.

I have a plant in my front garden which has just come out in flower this week (in the middle of winter!) with beautiful white flowers that look a bit like roses to me (I've only been in the house 6 months so this is the first time I've seen it flower).

I thought it might be an iceberg rose, but sent a photo to my Mum who thinks not. She said the petals are more "frilly" than her iceberg rose.

It doesn't appear to have any perfume.

I've attached a photo (which is on its side I'm afraid, but hopefully gives you an idea).

I was planning on digging up this garden and planting it with standard roses once it warms up a little. But these flowers are quite nice, so wanted to find out what the plant is and whether I should keep it.

Does anyone have any idea what this might be?

Looks like a camellia to me. Might be Brushfields Yellow which is really quite white with just a bit of lemon.

Photo attached (ours has just finished flowering so it's not one of ours).

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Hi Jen, it is definately a Camellia, as for a name to it I do not know, there are so many camellias.

Hello Jen,

It is definitely Camellia looking at the branches and the leaves. They are supposed to flower very early. Some in February. The only thing you will need to make sure that the Camellia does not get the winter morning sun directly to protect the fleshy flowers. They are delight to have them in the garden.

You are right Dave there are so many of them. I find it almost impossible to guess the name of Camellias.

I have only three of them in my garden and when they flower it is like the garden has elevated to the royalty standards - even the very very run down and badly neglected gardens. The Camellias have such an aristocratic look to them. Am I going got be bashed for saying so? I hope not. I just don't know any other way of describing the Camellia bush in full of flowers.

There are some roses when they flower they look like Camellia flowers.

Comparing to us we the rose lovers try to guess the name of the rose by its different attributes. Perhaps Jen, you could ask the Camellia groups. If there is no such thing perhaps this could be the start of it.

I know it is Rose Talk Australia. But I think as a companion planting the camellias could be accommodated in here.

Enjoy your Camellia.

Jen must have found other answers as she has not been back since posting Alya.

Dave,

Or she must have been so busy with somethings even if she intends to log on somehow there is no time....Just like how I am baffled at where the time has gone. I don't believe it.. it is July. Yesterday it was January!!!

And I am still busy going after the so and so surveyor to get him pay for the expenses he causes me to put things right because he got it so very wrong and I got a court order saying so ..and hopefully finished tackling the solicitors...err not really still have to take the last one back to the front of the judge to get ther obey the court order... Anyway...

It was like yesterday I was enjoying the Camellia in the garden... but it has been quite a while now...

...Well...How are you all?

Alya

There is a lot of misinformation in the garden industry in Australia. We were initially told we could not grow Camellias in Queensland when we asked a local nursery why they did not stock them. Another of the experts told us we could not grow roses.

We now have probably 100 camellias and 400 or so roses and all do well in our climate. There are even several wholesale Camellia nurseries within cooee of our place.

The other thing they tell everyone is that camellias and roses don't mix and you cannot not grow they in close proximity of each other. We have camellia hedges acting as backdrop for some of our perennial/rose borders with roses growing only  a metre of so of the camellias.

Our camellias start flowing in the middle of summer (one variety of sasanqua camellia starts flowing late January/early February) and run through Autumn and winter with the last ones finishing flowering in late September/early October. We also have quite a few OP Seedlings that pop up under the bushes.

They certainly add a lot of colour and variety to the garden.

Arch of Camellia 'Rose Anne' over the steps leading up to the 'Tea' Garden behind the house.
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Sasanqua Camellia 'Scentuous'.  This will flower until October
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Alya wrote:Dave,

Or she must have been so busy with somethings even if she intends to log on somehow there is no time....Just like how I am baffled at where the time has gone. I don't believe it.. it is July. Yesterday it was January!!!

And I am still busy going after the so and so surveyor to get him pay for the expenses he causes me to put things right because he got it so very wrong and I got a court order saying so ..and hopefully finished tackling the solicitors...err not really still have to take the last one back to the front of the judge to get ther obey the court order... Anyway...

It was like yesterday I was enjoying the Camellia in the garden... but it has been quite a while now...

...Well...How are you all?

Alya

As a surveyor I am intrigued what has happened. Everyone is capable of making a mistake but it sounds quite serious. The land boundary system in the UK is quite different to that we have in Australia and thankfully there is not a lot of legal challenges to how a surveyor defines a boundary here. Hope they had a good Professional Indemnity Insurance Policy and you get justice to the damage they have caused.

Gary

You have a lovely property there ,Gary......

Great garden as always Gary, you forgot to introduce the 3 puppy dogs. I think I can make out 3.

No there are only two. Zephyr who is the border collie is the pup of our two previous ones. He's about nine now and the other one is a blue cattle dog - border collie cross who is my shadow in the garden is a stark raving lunatic. He's 2 years old and both he and Zephyr actually belong to our daughter but seem to be content to live with us.

Great dogs.

Zephyr at the front with his sister Belle (who lives next door) on the left and crazy Bear at the back.

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On another forum about roses, I posted a comment about animals. Part of my comment went like this.
"A house isn't a home without animals"

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I doubt I could get the dogs, the cats and the horse to all pose together. Maybe photoshop????

But yes they are part of your home.