I love to browse through plant award lists. Plant CATALOGS can be more than a little deceiving but university trials like that one are unbiased and it's even more helpful that they have a similar hot-summer climate. I wasn't familiar with the one you mentioned so I looked it up. The link below has a list of the perennials (specific cultivars) that performed well for them. They had a list for annuals also.

The Mobot website has a list of "Plants of Merit" that's helpful and they have links to a chart with "bloom time" for some plants so you can see when and how long each plant was in bloom.

Missouri State has a fruit experiment station in Mtn. Grove and a little garden along Kansas in Springfield that you can visit where the students trial annuals and maybe some perennials too.

I wonder what other universities or botanical gardens do trials in our area.

Fess up Hergrammy - What did you buy? : ) Do they have lots of the Prairie Blooms award plants at Arnold's Greenhouse? When I went to K-State's site, it said Arnold's supplies some of the plants.

Here is a link that might be useful: Prairie Blooms trials

Actually, I didn't purposefully buy that many Prairie Blooms because didn't understand what they were at the time. There was a whole section, several tables devoted to them though - quite a collection.
Some of the plants to me are just not that pretty - Lamb's Ear for instance and Bee Balm (mildew). I like Tickseed and Bath's Pinks, Ice Plant, Hens and Chicks, and Tall Sedum and have all of those.
Have become very interested in peonies and they have listed several as Prairie Bloomers, which I think would be good insurance for success. Shawnee Chief, Sarah Bernhardt, Karl Rosenfield, Festive Maxima, and Duchess de Orleans. Does anyone have any experience with those?