OK, I smelled something in my yard today that I couldn't locate. Maybe that was it.

You sure it's not something else??? Right now, I have milkweed flowering (which is heavenly), jasmine and oakleaf hydrangea which are all very fragrant.

While I have 3 winterberries in flower right now, I don't know that the fragrances in the yard are emenating from that plant.

Looks like I'll have to nuzzle up to one of them. ;^)

Hey, Ted, where have you been? No, I'm not sure it's not something else (3 negatives make a positive?) - I'd thought it could be the gray dogwood that is further back in the swampy area but they don't seem to be in bloom.

There's no oak leaf hydrangea up there (mine did die but my son gave me a new one - also, the calycanthus is growing back from the root!) and I can't find any smell to the milkweed.

It's a good thing we didn't make a plan for me to stop to visit you this past Sunday after our fishing trip. I was so thankful that I'd asked for a ride with another person because I was totally exhausted.

We have several winterberry hollies in bloom and I don't recall them having a smell. Our sweetbay magnolia still has 2 blossoms and the scent is gorgeous and wafts around one side of the house and a linden just finished blooming that had a pretty strong sickly sweet scent but that's about all that I can smell except for the honeysuckle growing in the adjacent field. Sure it isn't one of these?

NJTea, No one believes you it seems...: )
I am also having problems identifying a scent from the winterberries but I think of boxwood... I can't smell it up close but I know it definitely smells.

I find the swamp magnolia, M. virginica, can perfume a vast area. It seems a little early for Clethra and the swamp honeysuckle, Rhododendron viscosum is supposed to smell good but I have only noticed the flowers, locally.

Loretta, you seem to be right - oh, well. All I know is that every spring since I've lived here I've smelled that some wonderful fragrance when the winterberry is in bloom. I can't see anything else in bloom back there but that's not to say there's nothing there.

Ted mentioned milkweed and that caused me to go and put my nose in the milkweed growing here. It's got a fantastic fragrance which I never realized it had, but the fragrance doesn't "waft" upon me when I walk past the plants.

So, when the leaves are off the trees I'll peak back in this area to see what other plants might be there; perhaps I'll solve the mystery next spring.