Product Description
Mexican hat or Prairie Coneflower 'Red Midget' is dwarf selection, reaching to 20" tall x 10-15" wide.
Slender looking, aromatic plant, with deeply cut leaves and red-brown flowers from July to early October.
Wild form of Ratibida columnifera (usually the yellow and taller form) is native through out most of USA, see the USDA distribution map. It is most common on the Great Plains - in dry prairies, along sideroads, railroads and highways.
Full sun or half sun, well drained, poor, sandy, shallow soils, medium moist to dry. It is intolerant to wet and heavy soils and clay! Drought, heat and humidity tolerant plant. Plants can be nibbles by mammals, especially the young shoots.
Native Americans used it's healing properties : an infusion is used to relieve the pain of headaches and to treat stomach aches and fevers. A decoction is used as a wash to relieve pain and to treat poison ivy rash and the poison out of a rattlesnake's bite.
Good plant for drier sunny borders, native plant areas, dry meadows, prairies or bigger rock gardens. It looks best in groups or masses, it is not long-lived, (especially on more fertile and more wet soil), but it will self seed.
Good perennial companions are Asclepias tuberosa, Asclepias verticillata, Aster (oblongifolius, laevis, ptarmicoides), Echinacea (angustifolia, pallida, tennesseensis, paradoca or others), Eryngium, Gaillardia, Gaura, Liatris, Monarda fistulosa, Oenothera, Penstemon, Salvia azurea or Yucca or grasses like Boutelloua, Muhlenbergia, sporobolus, Stipa.
This native perennial offers pollen and nectar to short-tongued bees, wasps, flies, beetles, other occasional visitors are butterflies or skippers. Host plant for caterpillars of several moths.
Pot Size : square 3.5" x 5" deep pot
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2 Reviews
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ratibida
its doing fantastic and looks wonderful among stipa
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RATIBIDA COLUMNIFERA F. PULCHERRIMA 'RED MIDGET-MEXICAN HAT
Flowers are certainly named appropriately because they appear to mock a mexican hat. Looking forward to see this bloom because of its rich redish color. Not an easy perennial to find- loves heat & many hours of sun. Also purchased the yellow only ratibida which is taller-had to have both in the garden.