Hello, please bare with me as I'm newbie gardner.

My mother was an extremely passionate gardner and shortly after she passed away in February I moved back into the family home. In an attempt to honor her beautiful garden I've been doing what I can to keep it going.

With that said she had the deep purple Clematis growing along a trellis on the side of the house and I thought she had once told "these come back every year" Well we are now approaching July and they haven't done anything!?! (the dried up vines look dead) I just found some bags of dried buds/seeds that she prepared for the next planting season which I initially thought may be for the Clematis? The information I've found on the web is pretty vague and generally refers to first time planting or very young plants these have been growing at the house for 15+ years. Do I need to replant anything or do any specific preperation to get these going again? Any help to get me started would be appreciated. Thank you.