Flowers that used to smell and now don't

[echt]

I've been thinking it over and it's getting worse. My sense of smell is excellent.
It's all about flowers where you get the smell when you stuff your face into them, rather then ones that waft such as jasmine.
I'm in Australia so it might the versions they have, though most exotic plants are the same varieties as the country of origin.

Lupins. As a child in the UK they had distinct, peppery smell. Not any more.
Hydrangeas. Again, a faint smell when I was a child. Barry Humphries refer to it in his autobiography so Im not imagining it.
Mini cyclamen. Unlike the larger flowering ones, they had a lovely perfume when I bought them in the UK. Not here they don't.
Freesias when bought as a cut flower This is a new one and only spotted it this spring. They seem bred for form, and even the yellow and white ones, which have the best perfume now smell of barely anything. Just as well they grow very easily outside here because I won't be buying them again.

Anyone noticed anything similar in the UK?

Yes, roses don't seem to smell any more, not like home grown ones. I assume it’s because they are hot housed.

Or selected for form and long lasting flowers.

I have a beautiful red rose in the front garden, flowers some years all the way to Christmas. But no scent whatever. It’s well over 30 years old, probably why there was no scent. Breeding in the post war period was concentrated on flower shape/abundance of flower; David Austin was the heck of a pioneer, hard to realise now quite how revolutionary he was.

Conversely I'm noticing more scent in some plants than I used to, but it may be more to do with me sticking my nose in them more often - primroses of various types, daffodils (some gorgeous, some less so), I don't remember noticing the scents of thistle and Ivy flowers until the last few years. Obviously that's not down to breeding, I think my sense of smell has changed.

Tobacco plants are one I mourn - DF used to grow the big white ones which smelled so good in the evening. The modern cultivars seem rather pointless, there are more attractive bedding plants, the breeders seem to have thrown thr baby out with the bath water there.

My sweet peas definitely are not as fragrant this year, could have been the lousy weather but I miss the smell, used to love snipping some off to bring inside.

Sweet Williams as sold in bunches in supermarkets in contravention of trades description, also carnations and pinks. Won't buy them. Or freesias.
The first flower I heard of losing its scent was musk. My grandfather, a gardener, said that one year in the 1920s they all became scentless. This was confirmed on GQT on the radio.

I was given a rose, Hommage à Barbara, in memory of my mum. According to all the catalogues it's fragrant but it has no scent at all. I'm hoping, rather desperately, that it's the non-sun summer that's caused it.

I know what you mean about freesias. They used to be fantastic (they were my late DM's favourite flower so we used to have them in the house a lot when I was a kid), but these days they hardly smell of anything.

Roses too - I was at a garden centre in mid-summer and they had loads of roses for sale, all different varieties. Most of them smelled of hardly anything at all.

Nicotiana sylvestris is good on the fragrance front. 3inch long white flowers in clusters. The leaves are faintly sticky and good at immobilising small flies.

I'm glad - sort of - that it's not just me.

The roses lack of smell is a thing here too. Wandering round a garden centre late last summer there was a section labelled "Scented Roses". Not on them had any smell. I find truly scented roses are only to be found poking over the fences of old properties out in small regional towns, the Goldfields towns in Victoria spring to mind.

Nicotiana sylvestris is good on the fragrance front. 3inch long white flowers in clusters.

That's the ones I meant - dad used to buy them, I only see the short multicoloured scentless ones now. I got some seeds which were labelled as nicotiana sylvestris last year but they turned out to be the latter type too. Maybe I'll have a more careful look for seeds if the old type are still available (the ones I had were past their sell by date freebies so I'm not complaining)

Some nurseries allow you to search on their websites if flowers are scented but not everyone does. If you can't even find the scented flowers why would the growers put any effort into retaining the scent? It's so annoying though, I want scented flowers in my garden.

That's sad about Freesias, I had them in my wedding bouquet with white roses. I could smell the bouquet before I knew it had been delivered to the room. I can almost imagine it now, 20 years later, it was beautiful.

I bought some freesias from the supermarket, they looked beautiful but were very disappointing scent-wise. I rarely buy flowers, I was very disappointed. The nemesia in the garden centre, I didn't bother with this year because their perfume was underpowered. Last year though they were lovely.

I wonder if it's the weather and the lack of pollinators. They don't produce the scent for us after all. If there are few insects around to stimulate the flowers perhaps the plants stop bothering and settle for self pollination?

I got mine from Chiltern originally