No you did not do nothing wrong by turning the clutch it free wheeling till rpms comes up and over takes spring pressure holding the two clutch halfs togather. Something is bound up. Probably the adjustment not in the notch hole on the bar and bound everything up. I would remove the cover, loosen the tension screw enough to get it in the bar hole easily when putting the cover back on. run the nuts down by hand but remove all the slack so the bar will still slide as you adjust the tension back on the chain. As the tension gets close with glove on move the chain so you know it's not binding up as you adjust it. Once you got proper tension tighten the cover nuts to lock the bar in place and check tension and movement. Outside chance the brake locked up on the cover but that usually makes it real hard to get over the clutch when you try to put the cover back on...

If you have heavy clay soil you need to be especially careful about amending planting holes. You run the risk of the potting soil/amended soil retaining too much moisture that does not drain well through the native clay and you wind up with a 'bucket effect' of soggy, poorly draining soil that can be the kiss of death for most plants. Ideally you want to amend as large an area as possible. Rather than amending individual planting holes, amend the entire planting bed. The intent is to make the soil texture as uniform as possible over the largest area and ensure that drainage is relatively prompt. Often with heavy clay or poorly draining soils that is not immediately practical give the size of the area in question or existing established plantings that preclude widespread amending. In that case, it is better to just dig the largest but rather shallow planting hole you can manage, loosening up the existing soil as well as possible. Add no amendments to the hole - existing soil coming out of the hole is the same soil used to refill. The shallow, widely dished planting hole will encourage you to plant high......just mound soil upto to the necessary level, creating a small mound or berm. This will facilitate good drainage yet still accomplish the recommended deep planting routine for clems. If you have insufficient garden soil to make a deep enough mound to cover the rootball and stems, this is where you can augment with some sort of organic amendment, like compost or potting soil/garden mix, etc. It is my experience that clematis - like many plants - are rather forgiving to their growing conditions. Obviously it is prudent to give them the best start possible but if that has not been case for whatever reason, it it still possible to grow great clematis vines once you understand their specific needs and address them going forward. Unfortunately poor drainage conditions can be extremely harmful and rather pernicious in their effect on plants - if the root system has already been compromised by poor drainage, there's not a lot more you can do, other than to try again!

I use the cheap kind of landscape fabric, the brown one that breaks down in about a weekend if left exposed to the sun. I cover it with about an inch of fine pine park mulch. Any deeper and too many weeds take hold in the mulch, so I keep the mulch layer thin. I still get a few weeds but not that many. In my veggie garden I use the more plastic kinda barrier and I cover it with a deep layer of straw (not pine straw). It breaks down over the summer. When I pull the plastic out of the garden I just mix in all the rotted straw. Lasagna layers work great but I get the landscape fabric at a discount (sometimes free), same with the straw. The only thing I have to buy is the pine bark mulch. I still have to weed but not that much. I do have Bermuda grass/Wire grass in my yard (the most evil thing on the planet) but it is easy to keep under control by keeping an area of soft fluffy soil at the edge of all my flower beds and garden. All the weeds are easy to pull from that fluffy area and they rarely make it all the way to the bed. This does mean that I have to sit outside and feed the mosquitos every evening but it is better for you than sitting inside watching tv.

Even if planted upside down, I bet that any existing shoot would find its way upward toward heat and light. My point was that the non-sprouters might either be slow starters, or not have any eyes to begin with, so you may be waiting on absolutely nothing. That's why I like to watch them before I plant them. It sounds like you got commercially produced pot roots Kat, with lots of (usually) broken 'fingers' hanging off a tight knot of smaller tubers clustered around an old cut off stem. I fell for a few packs of those at a big variety store and 2 of 3 clumps have yet to show any signs of growth. Sometimes you get all good tubers, it's just not very good quality control in those cases, in my opinion. And it's a shame the dahlia eager shopper might not know what to look for which are signs of growth: an eye or shoot already showing on the shelf in the store in either light green, pink or purple showing signs of life from the dull brown tuber. If you really wonder, I would do as Triple B said and unearth them, put them in light and barely damp soil with the crown/stem exposed and see if you do see growth in a few days. If you do, you can replant them with confidence. I have nothing against potroots, but those haggard, dried out, broken masses that are packed in bulk are often a lost cause and you're better off spending your $ on a solid dahlia vendor's tubers or potroots. For what it's worth.