Well, it would help if you tell us your growing conditions (other than clay). Do you have sun, shade, dry soil, moist, etc? If you want to get lots of plants for only gas money you really need to come to a swap. You just missed the raleigh spring one, but maybe there's another you can attend soon (and perhaps closer for you- not sure where you are). Things that come to the swap tend to be well vetted already for that area- a big bonus!

I grow some of all of the plant groups you mentioned. Everything you listed is fairly drought tolerant once established (remember, that takes about a year), and they're all easy, too. Several are long blooming and/or naturalize. They all do well in my clay, which admittedly is amended a good bit, but some of my older beds have mostly 'eaten' their amendments and the plants are still doing well in mostly clay w/mulch on top again, and many are reseeding/spreading in it. The light requirements are mixed, depending on which species of the plants you pick, but on the whole those mostly want sun. As to the deer & rabbits, can't tell you- we don't have bunnies (thank goodness) and deer mostly only bother the back where i haven't begun to garden much. There's lists on the site for deer & rabbit resistant stuff- you may want to search and cross reference with them. I have lots of common plants, and then plug in special holes & spots with more expensive things. That way you get to have a full garden and try new stuff, too. If it fails, you just put something else there.

I have everything on your list. I hauled in good garden soil by the dump truck loads and have clay or sandy soil(depending upon the area) under my good soil. Full sun, no Japanese Beetle damage, no serious deer or rabbit damage except for gaillardia.

Gaillardia is munched a bit by either rabbits or deer. Right now, mine are loaded with buds but no munching has taken place at this point. They didn't destroy it last year, so I've left it in place. It is at the very edge of my garden that borders the meadow where the deer and bunnies can reach it, so it's a great test spot.
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Everything else on your list grows without any damage in my garden (and I have a herd of 20+ that sleep a few feet outside my garden and walk through the actual garden most nights and mornings).

Baptisia takes a few years to mature, then it is spectacular. It probably has the shortest bloom season of everything on your list, but the foliage is beautiful to me. Find a permanent spot for it as it doesn't like to be moved once established (in my experience).
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Asclepias is a host plant for Monarch butterflies. So, if you plant it and they come, the caterpillars will munch it as food. You'll want to hide it back among your other plants unless you don't mind bare stems. My garden is a certified Monarch Waystation, so that's a good thing (to me).

Monarch cat on aslepias
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Nepeta is blooming now and will bloom until frost. I shear mine when the blooms are spent and they come back. Bees love it, so I often have to wait until evening to do the trimming when the bees have given up their work for the day. Nepeta is my "go to" plant -- I use it throughout the garden as edging and as a companion to many other perennials.

Nepeta behind the lavender:
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My lavender is blooming right now. I love my lavender! Plant it high and dry, don't fertilize it much at all, don't water it from above. I trim mine twice a year and get loads of blooms. I use a cordless Black & Decker HedgeHog trimmer to make fast work of all of my perennial trimmings.

I've had great luck with agastache 'Blue Fortune' and an orange one (can't recall the name). I had terrible luck with the one called 'Heather Queen' in the drought. It was looking great, but hadn't gotten established well enough. I've seen no signs of it coming back this year. I'm going to try tutti-frutti this year.

Blue Fortune

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Echinacea is one of those that gets deadheaded by the deer or bunnies when the first blooms appear. That's okay with me as I do it myself to promote more blooms. Once my plants were full, the deer left them alone. I tried the Sundown, Sunset, Harvest Moon and Rubinstern last year. The Harvest Moon didn't withstand the drought but they were newly planted last spring (as were all the others).

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I have written so many articles in my blog about gardening with deer. To see more information about my experience, just browse through this year's and last year's blogs.

Hope this is helpful.

Cameron

Here is a link that might be useful: my gardening blog

I think your list is a fine one. Some comments:

Achillea - my favorite is A. 'Coronation Gold'. Blooms over a long time (a little over 2 months) and has silver feathery foliage.
Agastache - I like A. 'Golden Jubilee' for its chartruese foliage and blue flowers. It reseeds quite a bit too.
Asclepia - Plant these where you won't have to move them again. They're not overly fond of being moved around or divided. Milkweed beetles are sometimes a problem.
Baptista - Some great cultivars. Takes a few years for this plant to get settled in and send up blooms. If you don't like its floppy nature after it blooms, you can shear it back by one third.
Euphorbia - There's alot of variety in this species. Euphorbia dulcis 'Chameleon' likes part sun and moister soils. It also seeds around quite a bit when it's happy. Euphorbia amygdaloides robbiae 'Mrs. Robbs Spurge' likes dry shade and will spread, but has one of the best cut flowers...lasts forever in the vase, Euphorbia characias 'Red Wing' is a great ornamental plant, but requires very well-drained soil, Euphorbia corollata is one of my favorites...looks like a baby's breath and has a long bloom season...it is however, the only Euphorbia I grow that the deer love to eat.
Gaillardia - G. 'Fanfare' is a great little plant.
Salvia - many cultivars. Salvia greggii is a little bit tender and it's recommended that you don't clean up the dead foliage until it starts leafing out in the Spring. Some of my favorite cultivars are S. 'Cherry Queen' and S. 'Wild Watermelon', but there are tons to choose from.

Oh, and the Echinacea are not deer-resistant in my yard. It's one of their favorites. Sorry.

I just bought three varieties of salvia. 'Viola Klose', 'Rhapsody in Blue' and 'May Night'. Viola Klose has the deepest color violet color and the flower stalk was denser than the others. I like this one the best.

I wish I could have gone to the swap last weekend, but I unfortunately had a HOA meeting and a birthday party to attend. To me it's always feast or famine. I had nothing planned for all the other weekends in April!! Ah well, I'll just have to hope to make it to the Fall swap. I'm in Clayton, so Garner was just a blink away :(

Thank you all for your responses. I have two beds, both receive morning dappled shade and then bake in the sun from noon until sundown. One bed is heavily mulched with bark mulch, and the other is not mulched at all. I plan on putting the plants that will naturalize in the unmulched bed.
My mom bought me two Achilleas, so I don't have to run out and get any of those right now. I believe I'm leaning towards two each of, Agastache, Baptista, Lavender, Nepeta and Euphobias. I don't want to plant too many new plants this year because of the drought situation. As was mentioned before, even though I wanted drought-tolerant plants, I know they need to be established before I can "ignore" them!!

Thank you so much for your assistance and I'll let you know what I wound up purchasing.

Deer preferences do vary by region/herd. I've heard of echinacea being munched heavily in other areas. I think mine are so surrounded by lavender, nepeta and agastache that it's too much work for them (they are lazy...that's another reason that they like the buffet line). However, if food gets scarce...

I forgot to mention salvia. I love the greggii varieties and have several colors. Those are evergreen for me. I just nip off the brittle ends in spring and those are now loaded with blooms.

I also love the Black & Blue salvia. I have a few Marcus (short), too. Then, there's the infamous bog salvia that sends out runners everywhere! :-) I'd love to find the HUGE indigo spires to add.

Cameron

Cameron, They sell Indigo Spires at Logees. I haven't bought anything from them yet. Their catalog is VERY tempting.

Cameron, check our perennial list, we have salvias coming out the wazoo. Adele

I will have to check out those salvia leads! I've not yet made my spring visit, Adele. It will probably be late May.