You've got Powdery Mildew. The plant int the first photo probably will not survive. However you can try to save Plant #2. If you start treating it right away.

With multiple losses, you need to check with neighbors up wind to see if they have a rose in their (often back) yards that hasn't bloomed lately. Somewhere nearby is a source for the mites. Your spring last year might have been drier than other years; that seems to encourage the mites to spread and in the southeast it happend in spring and fall, when temperatures are 70-ish to low 80s. The problem with coming up with a miticide that kills one specific species of eriophyid mite is that studies have shown that a miticide that works on one species may not be at all effective on another mite in the same genus. To the best of my knowledge, Bayer isn't looking at effectiveness against any eriophyids.

You are so welcome hon...having your zone in your name truly makes things go faster and answers more accurate since alot of answers are zone appropriate...pruning even with the soil line means just that..take your pruners and lay flat on the soil with the black vine inbetween the blades and cut..you don't want any vine showing above the soil..that vine is a goner and new ones will emerge from the root crown below the soil..also..when planting your new clematis..always plant them 2-4 inches deeper than the pot that they come in ..this is good because the deeper they are the more moist they will stay ...when buying baby clematis with immature root systems such as those by roseville in those itty bitty orange pots at Lowes...it's best to plant them 2-4 inches deeper with some bonemeal in the hole in a one gallon pot and dig a hole in the garden and sink the pot into the soil..bringing the soil back up around the pot...this keeps the roots in a confined area where they generally stay more moist because of the sunken pot and focuses the water where needed..the roots...pull the pot up out of the soil in about 4 months and if you see the roots coming out of the bottom of the pot then they are ready to be planted directly into your garden...people in the North have best luck using this method in early Spring moreso than late summer/early fall as your summer and falls are so short before winter arrives..I think your clematis will be fine as long as you keep the roots moist and probably in about a month you will see the vines re-emerge...

Seedmama, Your kind words are appreciated. Knowing how close you came to losing your home to a wildfire earlier this year, you know I'm always watching the fire weather and fire maps so I can text or phone you if needed. It is harder to track fire danger in summer because the winds are lower so the NWS doesn't issue Fire Weather Watches every other day and Red Flag Fire Warnings often like they do when we have windier weather in wind and spring. However, I know from being out at fires these last few weeks, including one pretty close to our place, that the fires are moving almost as quickly now due to all the cured vegetation as they move in winter/spring when being pushed by high winds. That is not wildfire behavior we have observed here often. Usually summer wildfires are sort of slow and lazy compared to winter and early spring wildfires. These year the summer wildfires are raging maniacs. Too many homes are burning across Oklahoma because of wildfires, and I especially hope that doesn't happen to anyone here. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'd be equally devastated if our house and garden burned in a wildfire, but at least the house is insured and rebuilding would be fairly easily accomplished. The thought of having a wildfire wipe out the garden and take out all the fencing, the wooden boards that edge all the raised beds, the arbors, gates, and trellises, and all the mulch is quite distressing. With the KBDI number being so high, even the humus and compost in the soil would burn and that is distressing too. After 13 years of soil-building, it would be so hard to start over from scratch. I'm also going to be really mad if the greenhouse burns down before I get a chance to use it! Wantonamara, I'm glad y'all are cooler this year. No one deserves two of these years back to back. I was really hoping that Tropical Storm Don would bring y'all relief, and then he didn't. Now Emily seems destined to head elsewhere, so I guess we can pin our hopes on the future 'Franklin' whenever and wherever he develops. What do you mean we aren't cooling off? lol We went all the way down to 83 degrees early this a.m. Isn't that cool? Well, maybe not, but it sure felt cool after the afternoon's 111. We've already hit 112 today, tying my city's all-time record, which was set in August 1956. We are supposed to go to 113 but I won't mind if we don't go any higher than 112. It is interesting how many fires start along the roadside. While all of the wildfires we've been to this summer have not necessarily started at the side of the road, I'd say 80% of them have. There's so many things that cause it---mechanical malfunctions, carelessness, etc. One of the scariest things we've had lately have been those big old flatbed semi tractor-trailer trucks hauling hay down to Texas. There have been several reports lately of those hay trucks rolling down the highway with flames or smoke coming from the wheels or tires. Our local law enforcement officers rush to find them and stop them before their load of hay ignites. (That has happened before, but not this year as far as I know.) Heaven help anyone whose property has a highway or other heavily-traveled road adjacent to their land. Pat, Sometimes at fires I (or someone else standing there with me) can smell the grass starting to burn underneath a vehicle (including fire brushtrucks) and have to warn someone to move out of the tall grass. Some fire depts. have lost brush trucks this year while fighting fires because the grass under the trucks has caught fire and then the fire devoured the truck. It is a constant risk. We see it a lot here with tractors and balers too. FYI: The Governor extended the Governor's Burn Ban to all 77 counties today. I do think our county has had fewer fires since the county burn ban was implemented, and even fewer since the first governor's burn ban was issued, but we'll still have plenty of them. I was looking at my poor, hot, wilty okra plants today and think they could burst into flames any moment just from all the hot rays of the sunlight they're absorbing. When I walked across the yard to mist the setting hens that are inside the coop, hummingbirds were flying around playing in the mist from the miste, as were cardinals and, a bit more discretly, the doves. I'm glad we have enough flowers in bloom to keep the hummers happy, but think they may find the southern migratation pretty tough this year. We have planted so many plants specifically for the wild things, but so many of those plants are struggling now and I am woried they won't provide as much food for the wild things as they usually do. The native possumhaws are looking really bad. Dawn