Add some milkweed and fennel and you're good to go!

Thank you!!

I don't understand your mock-up because that sidewalk is far too narrow for any elementary school. Your choice to place the pollinator garden at a school entrance is problematic. Plants that attract butterflies also attract bees. A few people are allergic to bees but a lot of little kids are afraid of them. A school pollinator garden should be sited where classes can walk over to visit it or the kids can watch the pollinators during recess but nobody will be compelled to walk near it to enter or exit the building.

In my experience, hydrangeas do little to attract and support pollinators so that choice is questionable. Depending on where you are located the butterfly bush is questionable as well (not reliably winter hardy in cold zones, invasive in several states where they do over winter). Pollinator Partnership has a nifty website with state and regional plant suggestions.

Thank you for your input! I’ll keep researching.

You can find lots of ideas and help here, https://gardenswithwings.com/

I do think a hedge or border of some sort to separate flowers from kids walking into school is a good idea. Kids will pluck every flower within their reach. :)

This is a wonderful concept for a memorial.

Thanks for the suggestions, info @cecily 7A and @Kate

Let's not uniformly tar all butterfly bushes with the same brush!! First they are very attractive to a variety of butterflies (including Monarchs) as a nectar source, although not considered a host plant. And there are both native species as well as a host of sterile cultivars that pose no threat of becoming invasive yet still produce plenty of nectar.

Also hydrangeas DO attract both pollinators and butterflies but not uniformly with all varieties. Lacecaps and those cultivars that produce an abundance of fertile (tiny, less showy) flowers will attract the most.

As suggested by @gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) consider planting some milkweed which is the host plant for Monarch butterflies.

I don't know where you are located but most states have a native plant society. The Missouri Prairie Foundation has a lot of Top Ten Lists for specific purposes

https://grownative.org/learn/top-10-lists/

Here are some layout ideas:

Wow, that’s amazing!!! Unfortunately, the front entrance is part of a capital project and plans can’t be altered. I’m attaching a pic of plan b. It will be located in the back of our school.

What kind of mint?

Use this in your research: https://www.nwf.org/nativeplantfinder/

Something like 14% of the native plants in a region support 90% of the butterflies in that region (if I remember that correctly). The link above uses research, including that by Doug Tallamy, to recommend appropriate plants for your area.

You're giving an awful lot of space to hydrangea trees that aren't that special for butterflies, IMHO. I'm going to suggest either serviceberry, red buckeye, (gorgeous we get all kinds of compliments on them on our campus), fringe tree or maybe a fancy willow, or birch. Ya gotta feed the caterpillars if you want the butterflies! Spirea, well ok, mostly pft. I'd sub clethera, maybe ruby spice to go with the buckeye . . .

For fall blooming, I grew a yellow perennial plant called "sneezeweed" and it was LOADED with butterflies. It does NO make you sneeze by any means at all. I think that is why it is not planted, it is a great plant. Looks like nothing until fall though, that's another downside. I planted it in with yellow black eyes susans and some type of perennial sunflower, which do look good in the summer, or aforementioned coneflowers. I planted mountain mint, not showy but LOVED by butterflies in our buttefly garden. It's a wild plant though, needs maintenance to keep tidy. Also yes, any of the milkweeds.

If you want to stick with a red flower theme, there are some sedums with red flowers that bloom in the fall that also attract late summer butterflies, like "Autumn Joy" sedum, very tidy easy to maintain . . . Oh, that reminds me, I also grew some kind of red coreopsis that also attracted butterflies. I can't remember the variety, it was tall . . . but there are very many colorful varieties of coreopsis, always a butterfly fave.

Ms. Kim, and nice small lilac, attracts early butterflies. Oak leaf hydrangea, another native. Pushing it in your zone but I grow it on the edge of zone 5b. Not sure about its butterfly attractiveness, it's just straight up attractive . . .

Plan B will be difficult for the groundskeepers to maintain (they can't easily mow around that butterfly outline). Also when you are standing at ground level the butterfly shape won't be legible - will children be viewing it from a second story window?