Flowers on Friday: Roses and Camellias, Straight Out of the Camera

I don't use my Nikon D70 DSLR very often anymore.  I like the in-the-moment convenience of my iPhone, which is always in my pocket when I'm outside.  Earlier this week, the light was lovely, and I took my trusty Nikon outside to see what I could capture.  Photos in this post are almost exactly as they were when they downloaded from the camera .... all I did to them was reduce the size, sharpen them a tad, and apply the watermark.  

'Paul Ecke, Jr.'  This color is SO difficult to photograph accurately.

'Tagalong'  Miniature rose.

Today is November 3, and most of the garden is feeling the autumn chill and preparing for its winter sleep.  Still, there are a LOT of flowers out there.  Many of the repeat-blooming roses have flowers.  Even a few of the spring-blooming roses have a produced surprise out-of-season flowers.  

'Morey's Pink'  Shrub rose.

'Perle d'Or'  Polyantha.  One of my favorites.

'Irish Elegance'  Three perfect flowers, all in a line.

As the roses put out their final flowers of the year, the Camellias are just getting started.

Camellia oliefera

'Winter's Star'

'Autumn Moon'

I love camellias!  They are a perfect evergreen transition from sunny to shady areas of the garden.  For me, the fall/winter blooming Sasanqua camellias perform better than the spring-blooming Japonicas, whose buds are eaten by squirrels and flowers are usually damaged by spring freezes. 

'Winter's Interlude'

Lost the tag on this one.

'Yuletide'

I found a wonderful surprise in the garden by the pavilion ... a little clump of Saffron Crocus flowers!

I brought these home from my 2015 visit to the Antique Rose Emporium in Texas.  The little bulbs grew leaves but didn't flower in 2016.  Last winter, voles tunneled through this garden and ate every single bulb in it, or so I thought.  This clump was spared ... probably because it is slightly away from where the others were and surrounded by Hellebores.

I had already harvested the Saffron threads from the flowers before I took these photos.  They're drying now.  There's not many of them, three threads per flower.  I will have to carefully decide what I want to cook to use them.

Today is a beautiful, sunny day here in Virginia, and I will be outside soon.  How is it where you are?