If you understand the nature of a camellia to bloom in the deep coastal south, you may be better able to determine whether they're 'worth the effort.' Here, camellias start the season loaded with buds. When they sense it's time, a few start to open. If a hard freeze comes, those that are open turn brown and drop off. When it's warm again, more open up. That repeats throughout the winter. The C. sasanquas have started, the others have different start times among the C. japonicas. "Blood of China' usually hardly begins to bloom until April and frequently the buds blast due to heat and we don't see all of them bloom. Here's one difference between a near-zone 7 and a true zone 8b where camellias thrive: When we have a 'cold spell' here the temperature may drop below freezing during the night and sub-freezing temps last only a few hours. The plants adapt to that. They have more trouble adapting to freezing temps that come and stay for days. If I were researching camellias for a colder climate, I would search all the university hort sites I could find and read all the books the library could borrow for me on camellias. I would look for those that bloom early on, like the sasanquas, and those that bloom late among the Camellia japonicas, so that I had a better chance that buds would not freeze before they opened well, or freeze just as they came into bloom. I would plan to plant in the best sheltered area I could find. My Mathotiana in in a southwest facing corner partially sheltered by the overhang of the house. Good Luck, Nell Here is a link that might be useful: Camellia

Littlem: Breeding new camellia is a fun hobby. It takes 5 years to see the first flower. Then it takes additional 3 years to evaluate the flower. The fragrant seedling plant of mine ia about 9 years old. If you just want to try to grow a few camellia seeds to see the possibility to have a nice new camellia. My advice is 'Do not do it'. Because the odds to produce a very nice camellia is very low, much less than 1/100. I would like to see you to learn an efficient way of camellia breeding first. Otherwise you will be occupied yourself with many ' dogs' of flower for many years. If you can develop an very special camellia for naming eventually, the sentimental value is priceless, more than your life time.

Thanks for the link and additional information. I've bookmarked the link and I added some "location" comments to my little plant notepad that I carry around in my pocket. I'll do some research so I can make (relatively) informed choices. One of my neighbors has a truly magnificent sassanqua (presumably, but now you've got me wondering) espaliered against their wooden fence. I can't wait to see it bloom. In the meantime, I just couldn't wait so I allowed myself one mail order camellia purchase. It's one of the newer super-hardy (for camellias anyway) types. I just like the blooms so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm sure I can find larger local specimens for less, but it was just a fun splurge for me. Now I'll try to wait until camellia season. We'll see how successful I am. Link to my soon-to-be-delivered camellia below. Thanks again, Grant Here is a link that might be useful: Camellia Ice Angels April Remembered

Here's a pic of mine from spring, but it was taken with a bad cell phone camera so coloring isn't very good in the photo. Looks like your rose still has more petals than mine does even in cooler weather, so maybe it isn't Scentimental. Hopefully, others will be able to chime in with more possibilities. I'm not great at identifying roses, but it might be helpful to others if you could post a full bush shot and some close up pictures of your rose's thorns and leaves.