She's plenty hardy for Chicago. If I remember right my daughter (lives out in Plano area) was telling me you all had some pretty chilly days with a good wind--could be she got wind burnt. Anybody spray anything around the area? Critter nibble from underneath?

I'd leave italone except to keep it watered for a while and see if she does not send up new shoots. I had a grandkids do a mean nasty number on a small clematis one year. I pretended it was still there and watered and mulched as usual. Just when I had given up on her the following season, up she came. Unless weed killer type substance or an animal/insect chewed her roots, I'd bank she'll return.

Sounds as if it died of clematis wilt, a fungus disease. It is cold hardy but I lost mine the same way. To avoid that problem, clematis should be planted deep, mulched and sprayed around the base with a fungicide. If it's just winter kill or animal damage, it might come back but clematis wilt attacks the stems at the base and that is THE END!

I just had the same thing happen to my Venosa V. - not sure what happened as I have heard they don't usually get wilt.

the Viticellas do not usually get wilt, a lot will go as far as to say they are immune to it.

The Sweet Autumn is not a prone wilter either,butnot saying she could never wilt. The usual wilters are usually the large early blooming types and young and/or damaged plants--a simple broken/damaged stemin transport canopen it to the disease.

Wilt attacks the stems , not the roots and clematis can a lot of the times survive the disease but it can take time. Wilt can be passed from plant to plant , which is one reason why pruners should be cleaned between using on the next clematis you head towards.

Sometimes even the prone to wilt clematis can outgrow the disease. My Jackmanii, which is not particularly prone to wilt, went down the first three years--just sections of him not the whole plant. Comtessa DeBouchard went down in several sections the first two years I had her. These are the only two clematis I have ever experienced wilt with, though I usually stick to prune 3's and have a large number of the viticellas.

Good luck to you.

Thanks for all your good comments. I didn't mention in my original post that I have two of these in the same area - two trellises right next to each other, with a SA Clematis planted under each. The other one also sent up a shoot that wilted at the same time this one did, but it's recovered nicely from whatever caused the wilt...no sign of life from the other one, though. I'll give it a couple of weeks, see what happens, and then dig it up and replace it. Very sad...thanks again to all of you for your help, though.

My neighbor has a Sweet Autumn and just lets the dead foliage hang over the top of the fence. It always comes back, been there for several years now.

What does prune 3 mean, please? I keep seeing that in catalogs, etc.

The causative agent of clematis wilt is wildly disputed. Some claim it is a fungal disease while others say it is a vascular disease that results from too rapid growth caused by overfertilization and the plant wilts to remove the top growth so that the roots can get better established and therefore support the top growth.

Many people have had their type II clematis outgrow clematis wilt which tends to support the idea that it is a vascular issue and not caused by a fungal agent. In fact, several studies have been conducted where people whose clematis have supposedly died from clematis wilt were analyzed and no trace of the suspected fungal agent that "supposedly" causes clematis wilt could be found. Therefore there is no reason to think that clippers should be disinfected when cutting back a plant that is suspected of having clematis wilt nor should the plants roots or soil around the plant be drenched with fungicides.

Clematis can also wilt due to a myriad of reasons totally unrelated to the proverbial clematis wilt. Lack of moisture combined with low humidity, breaks in stems, rabbits or squirrels nibbling on stems, voles chewing on roots underground, etc. are other possible reasons a clematis can wilt and not be infected with "clematis wilt".

My advice is the same as one other poster. Continue to act as if the plant is alive, providing it moisture and fertilizer as needed and I would bet that the plant will resurrect itself, especially if it was planted deeper in the ground than it was in its original pot. This buries dormant nodes that can be called into play should something happen to the top growth.

Aliska, pruning group three basically means that each winter or early spring, the clematis stems should be cut back to 2 or 3 nodes above the ground level. A node is the place on the stem where new leaves emerge. This is typically done to clematis that bloom on new wood since the old wood will not produce blooms. This treatment is also recommended for all classes of clematis the first year or two in the ground because it stimulates the production of basal growth at the crown so that you have multiple stems coming out of the ground versus a single stem.

Deb your not crazy.
My 5 year old passed also.
It hangs over and was large and beautiful.
I gave it a small hair cut as I always do about 3 weeks ago.
And now nothing....gone...finished...dead!
OH well that's gardening for you. When you have an empty space it's just nature telling you to plant something else.
I'll miss it.
It may have been the unusual spring we had in our area.