Amna, it is correct that clematis should be planted deeper in the ground than they were in their original pots since this buries dormant nodes that can resurrect the plant if it wilts back or is killed back by animal or the weather. It also can give rise to more shoots from the buried crown as the plant matures. I typically plant my clematis up to two or three inches deeper than they were in their pots and I do strip off the leaves. Some people do, others don't.

How have you pruned the plant that only produces one stem and do you know what pruning type it is? If it is a type II clematis and it is constantly being treated as a type III and being hard pruned, then you may be keeping the plant from flowering and producing enough energy to produce more stems. When you are pruning it may also be preventing it from blooming since some people can treat type IIs as type IIIs and still get get blooms while others can't. Did you hard prune it for the first few years to develop a strong root system? How large was the root ball when you planted it next to the conifer. In my experience, I have planted some clematis next to other plants, shrubs, trees, when the clematis were small and the clematis did well and other times they have struggled and not done much. Have you provided the plant with extra fertilizer and water so it is not having to compete with a more established plant?

My suggestion would be to dig it up and assess the root system. If it is still rather small, I would pot it up in a one gallon sized pot, sink the pot in the garden over the winter and then see how the root system is next spring. If it is still small, grow it out over next summer and then plant it in the garden next fall. If the root system is fairly large, plant it in the garden now in an area where it won't have as much competition.

Like Miguel (and a lot of others) I also advocate planting clematis quite deeply. I typically plant mine 4-6 inches deeper than they are in the nursery container, even those I grow in containers myself. I do remove any foliage in this area but often these young vines don't have much foliage at the base anyway. And if you are planting in good soil conditions with proper drainage, no this doesn't cause the vines to rot. Rather, it promotes additional shooting from the root crown as Miguel states.

When planting a clematis to grow adjacent to or into a shrub or tree you will need to provide some additional care and attention and allow perhaps a longer time for establishment that if planting the clematis to grow up a free standing trellis. The root systems of these larger plants are going to compete with the vine for soil moisture and nutrients and you are going to need to compensate for that. More attention to watering and fertilizing will be required. Bone meal in and of itself is not an adequate fertilizer - it doesn't supply the full range of nutrients and trace elements required. I'd switch to something like a complete rose or tomato fertilizer. Even alfalfa meal would offer a better input and may encourage more basal shooting, similar to the benefit it provides for roses. And it is not unusual for a clematis planted to grow into a shrub or tree to take longer to establish. Two years is not much time for a clematis to establish well in even a very open planting situation so I would be hesitant to judge its performance in this situation so soon. I have one clematis planted in a similar situation that is just now coming into its own after being in the ground 5 or 6 years. Patience is a virtue!! :-))

Thank you both for your excellent input. I will go ahead and plant the 2 deeper than the soil level that they are at in the pots and remove some of the leaves. So, on the second question should I leave the clematis growing/struggling next to the shrub alone and fertilize more intensively or is it worthwhile to dig it out and move it? or dig it out and plant it deeper also? How exactly do you fertilize? I have some rose tone fertilizer that I could scatter on the surface of the soil around the plant and try to scratch it in and hopefully the watering will deliver it to the roots? Or I could try to get some liquid fertilizer but how much do you use at a time and how often should I apply it? I really want these plants to be happy and vigorous and am willing to try most reasonable methods in addition to patience.
Thanks again,
Amna

Amna, what you do is really going to depend on you and your temperament. I have two clematis that have been in place beside shrubs that have been gross underperformers for over 4 years regardless of what I feed and/or how much I water them. I have others that are doing just fine under those conditions with other plants.

I generally use solid fertilizers that are spread around the plants. Sometimes I will pull mulch back and spread the fertilizer and then pull the mulch back around the plant, other times I toss it on the ground and make sure it gets watered in. I am pretty stingy with my fertilizer since I mulch well and keep replenishing it over the growing season so the plants benefit from it and the worm castings from the worms the mulch tends to draw. If you use an organic fertilizer or a slow release fertilizer that is low in nitrogen, then fertilizing monthly or so shouldn't be a big issue. I have even fertilized clematis when in bloom with an organic fertilizer and it hasn't affected the plant blooms--most probably to the slow gradual release of the nutrient versus something that dumps all its fertilizers all at once.