Mexican Hats

Two blooming native wildflowers that are easy to spot from the road these days are Mexican Hat and Thistle. They are both native but they also have a tendency to take over if not controlled.

Mexican Hat (Ratibida columnifera) gets its name from the shape of the flowers.

The tall cone is surrounded by drooping brownish-yellow petals that look something like a sombrero. It grows from 2 to 3 feet tall and the color varies from nearly all yellow to nearly all brownish red with yellow markings. It grows best in the sun but can take some shade. The wildflower mixes for our area generally include Mexican Hats.

When I first moved here I was enamored with Mexican Hat as the deer didn’t eat it and it came back each year. However, after a few years it took over a hill and other wildflowers could not get established. I like biodiversity so I set out to reduce its presence in my yard.

I learned that it has a very strong tap root, but pulling it up is not too difficult if the soil is wet as it has been lately. We tell you not to mow until the seeds mature if you want your annual wildflowers to reseed themselves and return in future years. So, I mowed the Mexican Hats before the seeds matured. This kept the Mexican Hats from spreading more, but because it is a perennial it continued to return each year. Only pulling it up by the roots worked to reduce the number for me.

I do like Mexican Hats, I just don’t want it to take over. So, now I let a few produce flowers, I remove the flowers before they go to seed and pull up the seedlings when they are young when I find them. There is always work to do in the garden.

Written by Jackie Mattice, Hays County Master Naturalist