Tulsi on a balcony, all year round

Tulsi is the plant most households want on the balcony, and the one we are most often asked to replace. It is not a difficult plant. It needs three things done consistently: as much sun as the balcony gets, water only when the pot is dry, and the flower spikes pinched off before they take over. In Delhi NCR it needs one more thing, which is help through the winter.

Sun comes first

Tulsi wants at least five to six hours of direct sun, and it is happiest with more. An east or south-facing railing is ideal. On a west-facing balcony it copes well, though in May a thin shade cloth in the late afternoon helps. What it does not tolerate is a shaded corner or an indoor window sill. In low light the stems stretch, the leaves turn thin and pale, and the plant becomes an easy target for mealybug and whitefly.

If your balcony simply does not get that much sun, tulsi is the wrong plant for it, and no amount of feeding will change that. On a sunny balcony, turn the pot a quarter turn every week so all sides get light and the plant grows evenly instead of leaning towards the railing.

Go easy on water

More potted tulsi dies of overwatering than of heat. Use a pot at least 10 inches wide with open drainage holes, and a free-draining mix of cocopeat, compost and a good handful of perlite or coarse sand. Water when the top inch is dry. In April and May that may be daily; in the monsoon it may be once a week, or not at all during a wet Mumbai spell. Black, soft stems at the base mean the roots have stayed wet too long.

Pinch the manjari

Once tulsi flowers freely, it puts its energy into seed, and the leaves become sparse and the stems woody. Pinch off the manjari, the flower spikes, as soon as they appear, just above the first pair of leaves beneath them. Every pinch makes the stem branch into two, so a plant pinched regularly grows bushy instead of tall. Keep a few spikes if you want them for puja or for seed, but not most of them.

Remove yellow leaves and bare, woody stems at the same time. In our experience a potted tulsi is at its leafiest in its second and third years. After that it is worth raising a young plant from your own seed or a cutting, so it is ready to take over when the old one tires.

Pinch the manjari every week from March to October. It is the single habit that keeps a tulsi leafy for years rather than months.

Getting through a Delhi winter

Tulsi is a warm-weather plant. When Delhi nights drop to 4 to 6 °C in December and January, and fog blocks the sun for days at a time, it often loses most of its leaves. The stems may look dead. Usually they are not. Move the pot to the warmest, sunniest wall of the balcony, away from the open edge and the wind. Cut water right back to a small amount once a week, and do not fertilise.

A thin cotton cloth over the plant on the coldest nights helps. In late February, scratch a stem gently with a fingernail: green underneath means it is alive. Cut the dead tips back to green wood, give it a handful of compost, and new leaves follow within a few weeks as the days warm. In Mumbai and Bengaluru, winter is mild enough that tulsi carries on through it with only a little slowing down.