Large flowering clems group II are known to have wilt for first several years of their life. Sometimes it is not a wilt but because stems are so brittle any direct contact to them as to location, watering might accidentaly damage it. Many clems are known to have lower leaves yellowing and browning and eventually ugly looking lower part of plant. If your clem flowered just fine but then some parts starting to die it is pretty much normal as many perennials start looking battered and ugly after they finish their bloom. Do not believe those ads which promise you continuous bloom from spring to fall- none of the clems will do that ;) Anyway, carefully remove dead stem, you still can add gently fertilizer and some good compost to plant base and water well. If you planted your clem deep enough and soil was well prepared by next spring you will have lots of new strong growth. I am pruning my all early blooming clems now- it does not hurt them and gives them chance to regrow new foliage before frost, and even possibly bloom later on. The only clem one should be careful with pruning are group one- early blooming macropetala and alpina- once they are several years old they will resent any disturbance. Cutting into old stems of well established clems presents a problem as well but by that time wilt is usually not a problem.

I doubt you killed your clematis, but you may have cracked the fragile stems at the base. Keep treating the roots like they are alive and you will probably get new shoots coming up. Best practice is to prune the clematis back hard before you plant leaving only about 6 inches of growth or taller so you have a few sets of leaves. There isn't a leader vine. Sweet Autumn grows fast, so keep watching it so you can try to guide the stems. I add bone meal the way Chalk Hill recommends, but it isn't required. I don't take out the supports that came in the nursery pot unless they fall off. I try to cause as little disruption to the roots as possible. I do take off the twist ties though and use my own. Tightly tying the vine to your support isn't good. I use velcro straps to hold the vines in place. It doesn't take long for the tendrils to grab on, so as soon as it does, the straps can be removed. What I try to do when planting a new clematis is plant it at an angle towards the support. That way the vines will already be growing in the right direction. To help it along, I might add a couple of lengths of thin bamboo on either side of the root mass and use these to help guide the vine. It also serves to protect the vine (somewhat) from dog feet. Where practical, I will use the velcro pieces to hold the bamboo to the support, but most of the time it can just rest on the support because the soil holds it in place.

Unfortunately, this can be normal behavior. Many of mine look exactly the same. You should whack it off six inches from the ground in early spring or anytime after regular frosts so it isn't encouraged to start growing again. You shouldn't worry about these vines, the new growth is going to come up from the crown which you should have buried when you planted. Not from these stems which are done. Daily watering should not be necessary except for tiny pots or newly planted Clems in extreme heat.

Browning of the *lower* leaves seems to be a normal occurrence with some cultivars of clematis. It usually happens in the heat of the summer after blooming time. Current knowledge suggests there is little that can be done other than to make sure that the plant is well watered and has a thick layer of organic mulch around its base to conserve moisture. Just prune away the dead leaves and leave the vines alone. Many times the leaves can just be crushed and they will fall away. Another type of browning leaves happens when the plant, or part of the plant, has suffered from 'wilt' and that portion has died. In this case the brown leaves extend to the growing tip and the vine becomes very brittle, almost black, and the axil buds are also brown or black. It takes some experience to determine whether this portion is dead. If the tip is bent and it snaps off cleanly, it is dead. Prune this down to either a living branch, live leaf axil, or to the base. The plant may be dormant for a period, but if kept well watered and fed you should see new growth shoot either later the same year, or the following year.