Gulbakshi Plant: How to Grow Four O'Clock Flower from Seeds

🌼 Gulbakshi Plant at a Glance

Feature	My Experience

🌱 Plant

Gulbakshi / Four O'Clock Flower

🌱 Difficult

Beginner-friendly

☀️ Light

Bright, direct sunlight

💧 Watering

Water when the soil has dried out

🏡 Where I grow it

Balcony

🌿 Maintenance

Low

🌸 Flowering

Flowers open in the evening

🌱 Propagation

Seeds

👩‍🌾 Best for

Beginner plant parents

🌸 Why I Love My Gulbakshi Plant

Gulbakshi is one of the easiest flowering plants I have grown on my balcony. Also known as the Four O'Clock Flower or Mirabilis jalapa, it is a wonderfully low-maintenance plant that grows easily from seeds.

And the best part? Its flowers appear in the evening, making it a little night-time delight in the balcony garden.

Its flowers open later in the day, usually towards evening, which is why checking the balcony in the evening can feel like discovering a new surprise. 

This plant has been with me since beginning of my gardening journey.

Over the years I have had yellow and pink coloured gulbakshi but my favorite is the Gulabkshi color itself.

One year, I got a lovely surprise—a yellow flower with a delicate pink line running through it.

🌱 How I Grow Gulbakshi from Seeds

This I have planted multiple times and every time from seeds at home.

Every flower has a black seed at base which you can easily collect next day.You can collect these seeds and sow it whenever you want.

I simply collect the fallen or dried seeds and sow them directly in the soil when I want to grow another plant.
In case you don't pluck seeds in few days it would fall on its own and you would see tiny plants in the pot.It sprouts really quickly.

☀️ Gulbakshi Plant Care: Sunlight and Watering

This is a tough plant.It loves bright sunlight.
When soil is dry you water the plant.

🌿 What Happens Before Gulbakshi Flowers?

Its very easy to spot when it is ready to flower.
Leaves form a cone shape kind of protecting bud till it is fully formed.And once it is ready leaves just open up.

🌸 My Gulbakshi Flowering Experience

🪴 Does Pot Size Affect Gulbakshi Flowering?

One interesting thing which I have noticed about this plant is depending upon the size of pot it decides to grow..

In my experience, pot size seemed to affect how quickly my Gulbakshi flowered.

When I grew it in a smaller pot, I saw flowers within a couple of months. In a larger pot, the plant spent much longer producing leaves and growing bigger before flowering. This time, I waited almost four months for the first flower.

From earlier experience when it was in small pot I had seen it flowering within couple of months So post two months impatience took over and I had tried requesting plant to show some signs of flowering.When request did not work I tried scolding it but in vain.Then I just gave up hoping when time comes it will bloom

🌱 Don't Panic If Your Gulbakshi Loses Its Leaves

Sometimes it will scare you shedding all it leaves.As you are thinking what went wrong with plant and sulking considering its dying it will surprise you with new tiny plants all over the stem.

🌺 My Gulbakshi and the Ganapati Festival

Plant parents talk to their plants and crazy it may sound but I am no exception.Last year during Ganapati festival time I had told this beauty to flower abundantly so i can offer home grown flowers to deity and it listened.

My Gauri's were flaunting beautiful gulbakshi flower daily.

I feel this tough looking plant is actually full of emotions.It talks with you , at times teases you, scares you and always pampers you with loads of beautiful flowers.

If you are new plant parent and on look out for some flowering plants , I would definitely suggest to welcome Gulbakshi as member of your balcony garden.

If you're looking for more easy flowering plants to grow at home, you may also enjoy my experiences with [Sadafuli] and [Aparajita]