How to Plant, Grow, and Care for Mexican Hat Flower

The Mexican hat flower gets its name from the gigantic cone in the middle of the flower, which is said to resemble a sombrero or hat. It comes in a wide range of colors from dark red, reddish brown, and red and yellow. It has a very active growing season and blooms from late spring into early fall. 

Like many coneflowers, the prairie coneflower, aka Mexican hat flower, is a great pollinator plant. It’s also relatively drought-tolerant and thrives in the hot and dry climates of the western United States. 

The most commonly known coneflower is probably echinacea, which is used in herbal teas. The Mexican hat plant can also be used in teas and as a treatment for poison ivy. Consider adding this coneflower to your pollinator garden, and you’ll also be rewarded with an edible herbal tea source! 

The Mexican hat plant is also known for being deer-resistant and relatively pest and disease-free. Known as Ratibida columnifera, it’s a fast-growing plant. The one downside is that it may crowd out weaker plants nearby. Give these wildflowers plenty of space in a sunny spot in your garden, and you won’t be disappointed! They also attract many beneficial pollinators to your gardens, such as wild bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. 

What is Mexican Hat Flower?

Mexican hat flower (Ratibida columnifera) is also known as prairie coneflower, red-spike Mexican hat, thimble flower, or upright prairie coneflower. This perennial plant is in the aster family. People grow it for its beautiful cut flowers. 

Native Area

Mexican hat plants are native to the great plains of North America from southern Canada to northern Mexico and most of the United States. It can be found on prairies, plains, roadsides, and disturbed areas all over this area.

Characteristics

The flower heads resemble other members of the coneflower family (like Echinacea), but with pronounced upright seed heads that form from the center of the drooping petals. This long-headed coneflower is supported by slender stems with bright green, feathery, and deeply cleft leaves. This colorful coneflower can range from red and yellow to reddish-brown. 

Planting

For the best germination results, the Mexican hat seeds require a period of cold stratification. Use a high seeding rate to sow the seed in the fall by broadcasting the tiny seed and then lightly raking the area. In the early spring, water regularly until the Mexican hat plants are established. Their bloom time will vary depending on your region but ranges from late spring, through summer, into late summer and even into the early fall. 

Indoor starting and transplanting is not recommended, as this plant is very sensitive to root disturbance. However, if you’d like to experiment, give your seeds a period of 8 weeks in substrate in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. Then press the seeds into biodegradable starter pots. Harden them off over two weeks in spring and transplant when soils warm.

How to Grow

Mexican hat plant care is notoriously low maintenance making this a great choice for an area of the garden that you’d like to fill without adding another plant care schedule to your agenda. 

Light

Red-brown Mexican hat perennials thrive in full sun. However, they will tolerate light shade. They make a great option for sunny borders in your cottage gardens. Given six to eight hours of sunlight per day, this truly colorful coneflower variety will flower profusely.

If you’d like to enjoy these flowers year-round then you may consider growing them indoors in potted plants. They can be grown in any warm, well-lit indoor setting. However, they are fast growing and may need repotting from time to time.

Water

It’s best to water these plants either early in the day or later in the evening after the heat of the day has passed. Watering during the hottest part of the day ensures that a portion of the water will evaporate before it can reach the roots. During germination and initial growth in the spring, these plants will require regular water. 

Once they are established, however, they need moisture less frequently. While these plants are particularly tolerant of drought, in excessively prolonged periods, they may need some extra moisture. Mulch can be used to help conserve moisture, especially in poor soils, and reduce the need for watering. 

Watering at the base of the plant with a soaker hose or drip irrigation lines works best. Drip irrigation lines are particularly useful for mass plantings where it may be harder to reach the base of every plant with a hose. Once the plant has gone to seed, you may cease watering altogether. Allow the seed heads to dry on the plant, and then carefully collect your flower seeds for next year! 

Soil

Mexican hat plants are known to survive in a wide range of soil types. These native plants are generally found in meadows, prairies, roadsides, and other areas with disturbed soils. However, they require well-drained soil since excess moisture can cause problems. The best growing medium is a well-drained, slightly sandy loam mix. Mexican hat plant has no specific soil pH requirements and can survive in neutral to alkaline soils. 

Temperature

The ideal growing zones for this plant are USDA growing zones 4-8. Since the seeds need a period of stratification, zones with cold winters allow them to propagate naturally. In zones with warmer winter weather, the cold period can be simulated by placing seeds in the refrigerator for a few weeks before planting. 

The ideal temperature range for this plant is between 65-75°F (18-21°C). When temperatures in midsummer begin to trend consistently above 90°F (32°C), the flowers tend to die back and go to seed. The plants will die back completely at the first sign of a light frost. 

Fertilizing

One of the benefits of planting native plants like the Mexican hat plant is that they don’t require fertilizer at all! Not only is it low maintenance, requires low water use, and prefers sandy soil, but it also doesn’t require any fertilizer. Fertilizing won’t hurt them at all; it just isn’t necessary.

Maintenance

You can extend the bloom time of this perennial in your garden by pruning back the flower heads or deadheading the spent blooms. This will encourage another flush of flowers. If you don’t want your flowers to re-seed themselves and spread, mow them down after they’ve finished blooming.

In the first year of growth, it’s recommended to cut back the spent blooms before they go to seed to help the plant focus its energy on establishing roots and becoming naturalized. At the end of the growing season, when the plant has dried completely and died back, it can be cut to the ground. 

Propagation

Mexican hat seed is easy to collect, and one of the benefits of growing this wildflower is an abundant and never-ending source of seeds to share with friends or spread to other areas of the garden. After the flowers have bloomed, each cone will dry and turn into tiny seeds that can be stripped from the cone. 

As mentioned above, these seeds require a period of cold stratification, so they will need to be planted in the fall for best results. The seeds are so tiny that they don’t need to be planted deeply. The best sowing method is to broadcast a large amount of the seeds over an area of bare dirt and then lightly rake the seeds into the ground. 

Common Problems

No doubt you’ve chosen to grow Mexican hat plants because they’re low-maintenance, drought-tolerant, and fast-growing beautiful flowers. There are, however, some issues to be on the lookout for when it comes to this wildflower. 

Growing Problems

The Ratibida genus has very tiny seeds, which can make them difficult to sow as they can blow away or become disturbed and end up outside of the area in which you want them to grow. They do need light to germinate, so they can’t be sown deeply either to avoid this issue. They can be broadcast across an area of bare soil and covered with a fine layer of vermiculite which will help hold them in place but still allow light to pass through. 

Pests

If you notice holes in your prairie coneflower leaves and the leaves appear to be snacked on, then you may have an issue with Japanese beetles. They are copper-black with a metallic blue-green head and are easy to spot and identify. If the infestation is small, it can be hand-picked from the plants and dropped into a bucket of soapy water. 

In larger infestations, neem oil can be sprayed on your plants to control the adults. However, Japanese beetles overwinter as grubs in the ground, so in more serious cases, you can treat the ground annually with milky spore powder. The milky spores are ingested by the grubs which then kill them and prevent the next generation from growing into adults. The best time for this type of treatment would be in the fall. Note that it can take a while for milky spore powder to be effective, so this is an ongoing annual treatment regimen.

Aphids are sometimes enticed by prairie coneflower foliage. The best way to battle aphids is to spray them off of your plant with a blast of water as soon as you spot them. To prevent them from returning and/or overtaking your plants, creating an environment that includes a variety of flowering plants will attract pollinators and other beneficial insects that love to munch on aphids, like ladybugs. In more severe infestations, neem oil or insecticidal soaps can also do the trick. 

Diseases

Ratibida columnifera is mostly free of disease. However, root rot issues can arise if the planting site has poor draining soil or if it is suffering from overwatering. They do not like to be in standing water so providing them with well-draining soil will help avoid this issue. 

Planting them in the right soil helps too. However, if you notice wilting even though it has received plenty of water, mushy stems, and a lack of new growth, this can indicate rot. Letting your plant dry out completely before watering it again can help starve the fungus.  

Frequently Asked Questions