Thanks, ccabal. I hope you are right! I was worried about fusarium. I thought the yellowing and browning looked that way but I did pretreat with a product called Actinovate. I don't see any evidence of bugs. Anyhow, no female flowers yet. I've got lots of males, they just started opening last week. I figured my females would turn up after a couple more feet of vine

Are the top and bottom the same plant? It doesn't look dead quite yet, but if you keep it in the same conditions, I am confident it will be dead in no time. If you want your palm to do well, try outside for a change (assuming you didn't just bring it inside for the picture). That soil also looks a bit iffy; I think it would like new soil (possibly a better mix?). As Andy said, if it is outside, and you let the rain water it (granted it has good drainage), I think it will do fine. Put it in a sunny spot, but acclimate it to avoid sunburn. Good luck! ~palmsandsnow

First off, it is infested with mealie bugs. Those white spots that are fuzzy are the mealies. I would go and get an insecticide soap and /very/ thoroughly spray it all down, inside of the curled leaves, the backs of the leaves, the stems. Any white mealies should be rubbed off (they don't bite). Wait about a week and then spray it down again a second time. Don't let it get full sun again until it's dry so the spray doesn't make the leaves burn. Mealie bugs aren't difficult to get rid of and don't require very potent chemicals to do so, merely your being thorough about it. That may be the only issue. But once you get rid of the bugs you can see if the leaves begin to unfurl, and especially if new leaves begin to be made open and flat. Other things can also cause curled leaves including mites or deficiencies so make sure you are feeding using a well balanced fertilizer with trace minerals. If you cover both of those and the leaves stay curled, just pray it's not leaf curl virus on top of everything else. The good news is it's probably not virus.

That actually sounds like a good spot for it and it does look happy and healthy. I think the slightly lighter green leaves are just newly opening, not indicative of any issues. What I would do is plant a second clematis with deep purple flowers. I think that the contrast of form and color will make the two shades of purple both look better. A couple with rich purple to check out Blue Bird AKA Edomurasaki and Daniel Deronda, both of which I have seen sold in American nurseries. ”I’m close to tearing these out.” I would wait until the flowers fully open to see if the color is more appealing then, and also see how it looks with deeper purple plants. If ultimately you decide not to keep it, please rehome it rather than literally tearing it out. I am sure that it is a plant that other gardeners would welcome since you have grown it so well.