Harold Glenn Borland: The Voice of Seasons and the Patience of Trees

May 14, 1900

On this day, Harold Glenn Borland was born — a man who became America’s quiet chronicler of the seasons.

Affectionately called Hal, he was both writer and naturalist, the sort of soul who met spring not with impatience but with reverence.

For thirty-five years, Borland penned an unsigned nature column for the New York Times, each entry an intimate letter from the Earth itself. His final column appeared the day before his death in 1978 — as if he intended his pen to rest alongside the turning of the year.

Like John Burroughs before him, Borland wrote with the humbled heart of one who found kinship in every field and forest. His sympathy for all growing things made his prose both enduring and evergreen.

Consider this reflection, his gentle invocation of springtime:

“The violets will come, in their own time.

That is all that was written in the sky by Friday's equinox.

The sun's summons will not be answered overnight, but the answer is inevitable.

The first hungry bee at the first crocus hums of June, and the first green leaf forecast cool summer shade.

All is in order.

Spring is the earth's commitment to the year.”

What a divine sentence — the Earth herself making a promise! Borland understood that real renewal is not rushed; the garden, like the heart, blooms in due time.

Gardeners, above all, can hear what he calls “the earth’s commitment” — that patient, pulsing certainty beneath cold soil and gray sky.

It is little wonder that his words, still shared by naturalists and garden lovers, feel like blessings sprinkled among the blossoms.

He once wrote,

“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.”

Such assurance!

Who among us hasn’t clung to that truth in February’s bleak rain or during life’s own winters?

Borland had faith that the cycle will always fulfill its vow — that even disappointment has its season and ripening.

He promised hope again, saying,

“April is a promise that May is bound to keep.”

How perfectly he captured that threshold moment when buds swell, the air sweetens, and every gardener feels the nearness of abundance.

Borland’s trust in time itself — not in haste or human will — is the salve of every weary spirit.

Patience and persistence, too, rooted his wisdom deeply in the natural world.

He wrote:

“If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees,”

He also wrote:

“Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.”

It’s a kind of moral gardening: to grow alongside what you tend, letting oak and dandelion instruct you better than any teacher in restraint, endurance, and resilience.

And oh, how wry his humor was!

“You fight dandelions all weekend, and late Monday afternoon there they are, pert as all get out, in full and gorgeous bloom, pretty as can be, thriving as only dandelions can in the face of adversity.”

One can almost see him smiling wryly from his study window — amused, not defeated.

Hal knew that to war with dandelions is to forget the lesson: we are meant to admire even what we cannot control.

So on Borland’s birthday, perhaps pause in your garden with his words in mind.

Listen for the bees promising June, notice the violets coming “in their own time,” and take comfort that “all is in order.”

For Hal Borland reminds us that each sunrise, each tender green shoot, is the Earth keeping faith with us — again and always.