I agree with your ID HTH Chris

SC Gardener, I garden on extremely compacted clay sub-soil (all topsoil was removed by the builder and trucked away when our house was first built). Parts of my Z5 garden are only a few years old, other areas have been improved by gardening on them the past 15 years or so - but it has always been a very hard go, especially since I have not been allowed to raise the grade in most areas of the yard. FWIW, from your list, I have been able to get most perennial geraniums to grow. Geranium cantabrigiense (x) Biokovo, also the similar pink one Karmina, Geranium cinereum Splendens, Geranium endressii Wargrave Pink, Geranium oxonianum Rebecca Moss, Geranium sanguineum & sanguineum Ankum's Pride, have all been in my gardens for more than 5 years, plus several others that have overwintered for a couple of years. I would give the geranium family a retry if I were you. Anemone - there are many kinds - I have had good success with two bulb varieties Anemone Blanda and Anemone sylvestris, both perennialize wonderfully (I grow them under trees where it is drier). However, I had a very tough time getting the perennial Honorine Jobert to thrive in my garden - 3 plants at 3 times (9 total - I can be stubborn lol) to get 3 survivors, 2 were pretty stunted after a few years and removed, the other is currently growing like a weed. I was told on the GardenWeb that one of the problems with them here is that they are often for sale in the fall (when they are pretty in bloom) and need to be planted in the spring to settle in well. Valerian over-wintered for me for several seasons, but had very little spread/growth in subsequent years and just wasn't there one spring. I didn't try repeatedly to grow them as I did with the HJ anemone because the color of the ones I planted were washed out looking. Delphs look lovely but only last a few seasons. I replace/add to them fairly frequently. Saqe - sage - salvia, I presume, vary somewhat but some will grow well in the drier parts of my garden. May Night & Caradonna do well for me and are long-lived. Marcus, a dwarf variety, gave me only 2 years. The culinary sages grew very well for me, but do tend to get woody fast, and I replace them every few years. All of them grow best for me with a little gravel in the planting hole, or near rocks or concrete walkways, etc. Firewitch dianthus is the only dianthus that is truly perennial for me. I was very surprised to here that yours died. Other kinds are very iffy, even to overwinter a season or two. The biennial ones, however, are usually capable of giving 3 to 5 years - don't ask me why! Ornamental grasses - miscanthus, panicums, calamagrostis (called something else now) all do very well, while the pennisetums are a bit more difficult (try the rocks/gravel thing for some of these). The silver blue things (except for the panicums) seem to be very questionable here, for example, Blue Oat Grass works best as an annual in a pot and Elijah Blue fescue survives but heaves a lot. Sedges make a good replacement for some of the smaller grasses. Most campanulas are short lived for me, even the dreaded spreader glomerata only managed to be a well-behaved, but fairly tender plant for me, which would die out for no reason every 3 or 4 years. Coreopsis - only long-lived one for me is Moonbeam, the rest 3 years tops, with the really bad pink ones strictly annuals. Creme-brule (multiple plants) lived 2 seasons only. I eventually found it more fun to buy various coreopsis seed packs in spring and sprinkle them in pots for mid/late summer placement in those inevitable dull spots in the garden. Lady's mantle grows like a weed for me and seeds into every crack in the sidewalk as well as the soupy parts in the low areas of my yard, in full sun or full shade. Maybe you could retry that one. From your second list - ajuga, achillea, agastache, & artemisia are all problematical for me. One of our local nurseries cautions buyers about using Ajuga as a groundcover, others sell them in flats for unsuspecting buyers. Caitlin's Giant ajuga is a definite annual for me, no matter where I plant it or how I plant it. Burgandy Glow usually overwinters, but may disappear (the whole big patch) at anytime thereafter. Grows best under the eaves or next to a walkway in my garden, the same with Chocolate Chip. Achillea' Moonshine is the easiest one for me - will grow, but not spread around excessively (or even all that much) and has lasted for years (over 10 years). Paprika and Fireland do fine in the upper garden near the patio, as does Cerise Queen, but it's counterpoint in my pink garden Appleblossom faded away. Agastache - only one you see around here for sale is Blue Fortune. It is supposed to handle somewhat damper conditions than most Agastaches. I have never tried it. I have stayed away from all agastaches because of my drainage issues and because they are too large for my gravel garden. I usually pot grow at least one Agastache a season. Artemisias drive me insane. They won't grow in the garden proper, but overspread their space in my raised gravel garden and spread all over the place. I think I've tried them all with absolutely no good results. I now rely on Lamb's ear - it may rot out sometimes, but always comes back the next season. Just rake out the mess, stick whatever looks reasonably possible to regrow, and forget them. Lamb's ear is about the only silvery plant I can grow - for blue grey green I use Walker's Low catmint, which can get messy but always returns faithfully and can be pruned to shape them and for multiple bloom cycles. Guara (listed by others) - the only hardy variety for me is Whirling Butterflies, pink ones are strictly annuals. Whirling is bone hardy and is currently spreading a bit too much for me (likes the front edge of my beds where they are too tall). I also helped them along by moving all the plants from one corner of the yard to another (while flowers are white - there is still a lot of pink to them which I didn't like in my yellow, blue and white garden) but the removed ones regrew in their original spots as well as in their new locations, bigger than ever, so I unintentionally doubled my quantity. Every year I dig out a few more and trash them. Scabiosa - I bought 12 plants of Blue Butterfly one year when these were a "hot" plant. They bloomed like crazy, but none returned, never tried again. I did have a S caucasica Perefecta Alba which over-wintered a few seasons and then died out. For myself, I would like to add to the list - the heuchera. Some live forever, some die after one season, and lots of them shrink year by year. I know they are wonderful some places but not in my garden. Hardy for me are Palace Purple, Green Spice and Caramel, also one of the more silvery purple ones, with prominent veining whose name I no longer know, possibly Pewter Veil. The rest are a big question mark, and I have tried lots of them.

Hope it is not too late to post an answer here. I once crossed nicotiana glauca (a perennial woody shrub) with n. tobaccum (an annual). Resulting seed grown plants were intermediate, lasting several years before expiring. What I thought interesting is that although I used the tobacuum as the seed mom, the cross resulted in plants that shrugged off frost with no damage, unlike the seed mom. Also, the flowers of the hybrid represented each parent, with one parent having yellow flowers and the other had pink flowers. The hybrid made all infertile plants as they made blooms like there was no tomorrow, but never set a single seed!

A question for you is what effect do you want? If you want an all flower meadow, then you will need to remove the grass and plant annual seed. You will need to spread the seed thickly and mulch well, otherwise you will also get lots of volunteer weeds. With annuals, you will need to do this every year. If you want a lower maintenance perennial meadow, you will need to do a fair bit of work the first two or three years, then less work afterwards. See the link below for information about establishing a prairie meadow -- go to the home page, click on the PDF catalogue and find the section in the catalogue about site preparation. As for the rocky area, it will be futile to remove the rocks, more will show up every year. Choose plants that do well in dry, stony soil for that area. Here is a link that might be useful: Praire Moon Nursery