introducing butterflies to a garden

[Paul Cherubini]

Janet Smith wrote:
 
> My neighbor has tons of hollyhock in her yard and she's interested in
> introducing and encouraging some Painted Ladies to take residence there.

It's one thing to attract stray butterflies into one's yard and another
thing to get them to stick around and breed there. With danaid and
heleconid butterflies, it's rather easy to get them to stay around by
providing lots of nectar plants and larval host plants. With those
butterflies, one can introduce either the larvae or adults and some of
them are likely to stick around (unlss they are migrating). It isn't
necessary to put a sleeve of netting around the larval plants to protect
them from predators if one can live with the normal ~50% loss due to
ants, spiders, wasps, tachinid flies, etc.

Painted Ladies are so highly dispersive my guess is it will be difficult
to get many of them to take up residence in numbers. 

Paul Cherubini, Placerville, California