This is a tardy Saturday Snippet, posted on a Sunday because I spent most of yesterday actually planting things in my garden! But I have the perfect reason to post this weekend, complete with literary tie-in: my new rosebush, Le Petit Prince.

Also known as La Rose du Petit Prince, this beautiful rose is named for the classic novella Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, which features a Rose who is the Little Prince’s responsibility and love, in spite of her flaws.

But here’s some additional, wonderful information about the actual rose, from the blog www.thelittleprince.com:

“For over 50 years the Pépinières et Roseraies Georges Delbard nursery gardeners have been creating exceptional roses. Very possibly you have a Claude Monet or Comtesse de Ségur rose bush growing in your garden … It was back in 2008 that they first thought of creating the Little Prince rose in partnership with the Petits Princes Association! It was altogether fitting that the celebrated little fair-haired Prince who was so attached to his flower should have a rose named after him. With its beautiful mauve petals with hints of violet, the Little Prince Rose reminds us of both the sweetness and the power of children’s dreams. This admirable partnership hoped by means of this initiative to send a message of hope to all sick children. For each rose bush sold, 2 euros are paid to the association, in order to perpetuate their action.

This very beautiful rose has also won several awards in the context of the Grand Prix de la Rose. This year it won the 1^st prize, thanks above all to its original scent!”

When I saw this rose at the local garden center, with flowers that read more of a pale pink to my eyes than mauve, then read its name, and smelled its heavenly, lemony-rose fragrance, I knew this little prince had to come home with me.

One of the most famous passages in Le Petit Prince describes the little prince’s leave-taking from the fox he has tamed, at the fox’s own request:

“Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret.”

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

“You are not at all like my rose,” he said. “As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world.”

And the roses were very much embarassed.

“You are beautiful, but you are empty,” he went on. “One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you–the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.

And he went back to meet the fox.

“Goodbye,” he said.

“Goodbye,” said the fox. “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

“What is essential is invisible to the eye,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”

“It is the time I have wasted for my rose–” said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

“Men have forgotten this truth,” said the fox. “But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . .”

“I am responsible for my rose,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

Welcome to my garden, Little Prince!

Featured illustrations: from Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery; in public domain in the U.S., still copyrighted in France.