Should my clematis Montana be looking like this?!

[MissAtomicBomb1]

It's still looking very woody. No leaves but quite a few buds and a few green shoots. Just still seems mainly quite twiggy though!
I thought they usually flower at the end of May. I don't feel mine is looking too promising 😞

Mine is now in full flower, but they do seem to have appeared from nowhere over the last week. Its on a south facing fence in the East Midlands.
Yours looked like mine did about three weeks ago. Where are you?

I'm also in the east mids! Not a south facing fence though.
It's definitely not dead as bits are sprouting on it but just thought there would be more by now - I shall remain hopeful then!

They flower on last years growth, it looks as if it has just got too much old stuff in the middle which won't flower.

I would wait until any flowers are over and then prune it back quite hard and give it good feed.

Mine is exactly the same and I’m in East Anglia, the last 2 years it has been smothered in flowers by now.
I'm going to chop it down to about 30cm and see what happens @TonTonMacoute has given good advice.

The weather has been pretty cold so far this year and plants that are getting more sun are markedly more advanced than those in the shade. A few warmer sunnier days will soon being them along.

Mine isn't showing any leaves or flowers, but it is growing in the shade. I broke a couple of stems and they are green inside, so it looks like it is alive, only still dormant. It is a relief to see others are the same, I really thought it was dying.

I was fairly sure mine is dead, not a single sign of life, I was planning to chop it back to the ground at the weekend and see if it regrows from the roots. I might leave it be for another couple of weeks first having seen this.

I watched a gardening programme where the man said clematis should be cut down to it's roots in winter. This will help more flowers to blossom and get rid of the dead woody bits.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/clematis/growing-guide

I don’t think it gets more blossom, at least not on species such as C montana, but it brings them down to eye level.

if you have a slug problem, maybe best not to prune right to the ground. Keep the new growth out of the slug zone

Mine is in flower, still some buds yet to open, Lancashire, facing approx south. It gets a good prune every year after flowering, though not down to the ground, it's trained (roughly) on the upper half of the fence.
The other one facing approx east and rather shaded won't flower this year because I had to hack it back last autumn (it was way overgrown, I hadn't been able to prune it after flowering for a few years before because of blackbirds nesting in it) - it's just coming into leaf, maybe a little further on than the OPs but

I had a quick look through my photos as I often take one of the clematis Montana - 4th May 2020 was a little further in bloom (that was a sunny spring); 6th May 2021 there were leaves but flower buds not yet open. So there can be quite a bit of variation.

This happened to mine two years ago after my mum pruned it back quite severely then every time a bit of green appeared on it, the starlings stole it for their nests and it just never had the chance to recover! We're on the second spring of mine looking entirely hopeless.

mine is in flower, it is in quite a sunny spot though. south yorkshire.

Mine has come back from absolutely nothing twice. The first time was when it was new, and slugs munched any sign of new growth.

The second time was when the fence it was climbing on had to be replaced.

A PP is right though, slugs can really destroy the new shoots, they have to be well protected.