Fragrance in flowers often tied to air temperature, maybe that has something to do with this situation.

Hm, thanks for your reply. Interesting possibility...I wonder if it's been cooler this March than other years in the past.

The answer is *yes*, it's over 10 degrees cooler on average than last year. There have been days that it's been 20 degrees colder.

DH wants me to post that he did think of the temperature as a possibility, but told himself "I don't know anything about gardening, that can't be it" -- reverse self-denigration! I've heard girls/women do it about, say, math, and talk themselves out of right answers to problems, but this is a first in this direction...

We have 2 areas with clematis armandii -- one is really blooming like mad now with new reddish eager vines shooting up to the sky -- and no fragrance. Last year the fragrance was overwhelming with far fewer blossoms. Glad to hear it's the temps. Can still smell the daphne which is still blooming but only on lower 1/2 of plants.

Yep, our daphne is still going, just not as fantastically as it had been. Everything has been blooming/growing so prolifically this year so far, I'd really been looking forward to the clematis, though...it's the biggest of all the fragrances. Odd that the weather didn't affect any of the others.