Roses and Camellias

I spent much of today at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden outside Richmond.  It was sunny, if a little cool and very pleasant.

I didn’t quite know what to expect.  The trees are starting to turn but most are not very colourful yet.

Also I thought that many of the flowers would be over or cut back ready for the Holiday Festival of Lights which will start in late November.  In the conservatory they were already preparing the big floral Christmas tree..

As I walked around I was surprised to see so many roses and camellias in bloom.

The roses were beautiful, even though they were obviously in their final stages of flowering.  

The camellias, however, were a different story.  The bushes were covered with flowers and buds as if this was their main flowering season.  Are there Autumn flowering camellias?

The award for the strangest plant of the day goes either to this...

...which unfortunately had lost its name plate..

Or to this, in the conservatory, known as the ‘Bat Flower’ for obvious reasons!