Dying Daphne

Several years ago my mother-in-law gave me a daphne odora to plant near my front door. Daphne plants are one of the first plants to flower in late winter/early spring, and have a strong sweet scent. They are also evergreen, lending color to the garden even in winter.

At first, my daphne would be covered in fragrant, delicate pink flowers every March. But then a couple of years ago it started to lose its leaves, although it continued to bloom every spring. Now, after a year in which Seattle saw its hottest day on record (108 degrees last June) as well as its coldest day in half a century (17 degrees in December), my poor daphne looks like this:

At the same time, just a block away my neighbor’s daphne looks like this:

Clearly, I’m doing something wrong. I wish I knew what!