Hm maybe I just wasn't able to detect the scent on the humile or azoricum, I know I definitely couldn't smell much with the azoricum when I saw it in a conservatory/greenhouse area. The only one which I remember smelling was the grandiflorum de grasse, tried the standard sambac, and whilst it was fragrant, nothing like as strong as the grandiflorum and I think the grandiflorum actually smelt better. The trachelospermums some people love, some people hate, personally I think they're fantastic for the UK, a hardy jasmine that flowers profusely around here.

This has happened to me so often, most recently early this year when I bought a plant labelled 'Jasminum sambac' with a picture showing typical white jasmine flowers. The plant was heavy with unopened buds ... when they opened a few weeks later, they were completely scentless. (Who knew that there was a scentless J. sambac?) Anyway, I've grown Mandevilla laxa in a temperate climate (in Melbourne), and can tell you that it is scented. You don't have to have a shower first to smell it. Since moving to the subtropics, I've seen a plant in the nursery called Mandevilla laxa '[cultivar name: something like Alice du pont??]'. Obviously I can't remember the cultivar name, but the picture showed a large, plastic-looking white flower similar in size and shape to the unscented common pink and red forms of Mandevilla. (These unscented one have a more rigid flower that doesn't hang down like the scented one.) I suspect that your unscented one was probably this cultivar. It seems they've bred the plant for larger flowers and completely lost the scent in the process--like tomato breeders who breed for size and shelflife without regard to taste! I guess the lesson is to buy scented plants in flower.

It's listed as zones 8-11 so no way it would be hardy here. But you could grow it in a large pot and overwinter it indoors. I grow the regular pink mandevilla in a big pot on the deck, and just before frost I whack it back to a 6" stub and store it in the basement for the winter. It gets some light via a north facing window so it eventually puts out about 18 inches of growth before I put it back outside in mid-May. Larry

If we're talking Mandevilla laxa... be patient. Looking dead when dormant is normal, nothing to worry about - of course it also looks dead when it's dead, which could be the case if it got really cold where you are. More likely it's fine and will get going when spring is well underway... it likes heat. As for other plants... certain things are already growing (some Clematis, for example). Certain other plants don't make an appearance until July. So it really depends on the specific plant.