Mallow Plant, Living

Everything I received was healthy and developed well. I got butterfly, ladybug, and mealworm larva, as well as a mallow plant. The mallow plant is the host plant for the painted lady butterfly. My class is really enjoying watching them change, and is developing an understanding of the insect lifecycle. I would recommend this for families and teachers.

We didn't purchase a Mallow Plant a few years ago when we did this project. This time we did. I'm glad! The butterflies really liked it and laid eggs on it prior to leaving us. That was a new feature for us.

My plant came wrapped as stated in the one review. Now it's up to me to keep it alive and that's a challenge in itself. The other review is suspect...you aren't supposed to use the plant to feed the caterpillars with, it says that it won't take them throu adult hood.

I have been breeding butterflies for at least 5 school years with my students. I buy the mashed food for the caterpillers to live on. I buy a few of these plants in hopes of getting 25-30 good eggs to go another generation. The eggs that are laid on the leaves of these plants are indeed the eggs most likely to make it to the next generation. I place in my butter fly habitat a branch of hibiscus, that some butterflies do lay their eggs on. It leads to good conversation with students about co-evolution of species and R-Strategy reproduction. These plant are delicate and fickle and not made for California's dry climate and interior heating and cooling.. Try and order them on the day your cocoons are opening or even a week later. The butterflies will live with sugar water in bottle caps for a month. You have a little time to get the plants shipped to you.

Honestly kinda disappointed in the plant for it being $26 . The plant is small and does not look like the picture. But on the plus side hopefully it will grow out and it came very well packaged!

Purchased the mallow plant for the Painted Ladies to lay eggs on (per suggestion on web site). It arrived in so-so condition and never really thrived despite being transferred to a larger pot, given good soil, and plenty of grow light. The butterflies did lay tons of eggs on it but there just wasn't enough plant for them to feast upon, so alas, no new butterflies.

Takes concerted effort to get this recently rooted cutting of a host plant to flourish and provide enough food for just one caterpillar of the Painted Lady Butterfly.

We were hoping the butterflies would lay their eggs so we could have more butterflies, but the plant died within two days of receiving it. It was a waste of money.

I have been ordering from Carolina Biological for years and I am disappointed this year. I received the mini cups of larva and the cups are way to small and I wanted the larger cups with 5-6 larva. As well the 2 Mallow plants I ordered came in dead, but I was able to revive one of them.

We were excited to get our plant but sadly disappointed when we opened it. The plant had separated from the pot and was half dead. This was on Wednesday. Now that it is Monday, the plant is all the way dead. I wish I hadn't spent the money.