Mine too! I have a two year old clematis montana and as it had finally covered the arbor, was expecting a massive display this year. Nada. Dead sticks. Nothing even coming up from the ground. I'm desolate.

I didn't think the winter was that much colder than last year, but I've had significant damage to plants I've had a long time (20+years for one Rhodo that is very unhappy). Maybe the timing of the cold? Or the relentless wet and then the cold?

I'm wondering if I should just dig it up or wait to see if it pushes up from root growth? Most things are pretty slow this year.....

I would wait before doing anything drastic.

If you are positive the vines are dead and you have growth from the ground, go ahead and prune them back to live vines.

Clematis often regrow from the crown and they can be slow about it.

In Portland, we had an 18 degree night back in November, that everyone probably forgot about by now. I'm now seeing all the usual symptoms on my less hardy stuff.

I think it was the nasty winter weather. Mine had a lot of winter dieback. About half of my plant died. I also noticed a lot of damage to my neighbors. Just prune out the dead stuff and it will come back.

I'd be inclined to think winter damage as well. We had a pretty unrelenting string of nasty weather all winter, beginning with record breaking rains in November and continuing through several very sharp cold spells that persisted late into the season. Quite a bit of a departure from our "normal" winter weather and I am seeing a good bit of damage/winterkill to many plants which would ordinarily breeze through a PNW winter.

My own 15 y.o. montana rubens seems to have bit the dust as well, although no doubt I contributed to its demise by a hard pruning rather late in the season, even though I have done a similar late pruning very successfully before. Another younger and smaller montana came through just fine.

btw, I posted earlier about the winter damage apparent on my Choisya and just wanted to report that I took the advice of waiting until after its flowering before pruning out the worst and boy, am I glad I did!! It has never bloomed quite so abundantly and so prolifically before and the citrus-y frangrance is stronger than it has ever been. Foliage still looks like crap, but you can hardly see it for the mass of blooms. 'Sundance' and 'Aztec Pearl', otoh, appear to have passed the winter unscathed but neither is blooming heavily.

Since you went and mentioned 'Sundance', perhaps I can ask the redundant question of what do you have to do to get one to bloom at all ? I don't have 'Butch Cassidy' to polinate it but why else has mine never ever bloomed ?

Just discovered this forum tonight! What a relief it is to learn that mine wasn't the only Montana clematis to bite the dust this winter. We have a huge weeping birch in our back garden and there was a lovely clematis growing right up to the top of it and cascading down. About this time of year, it should have been a big pink tree but this year we only have dead vines. The winter was horrible so that must be what did it in. Boo hoo. Now, at least I know I'm not alone

I wouldn't be surprised if the constant winter rain did it in. We used to have a fabulous one but I think it died from wet feet.