U.S. Air Force veteran Amy Rose wanted to plant a rose garden at her Hot Springs home, not only for the beauty it would bring but as therapy for the PTSD that has plagued her since her service, which included two tours in Iraq.
On Wednesday, thanks to a Tennessee-based veteran's group and local volunteers, her dream became a reality.
Frontline Gardens, a relatively new nonprofit out of East Tennessee, partnered locally with American Legion Post 13 and Lowe's to install a raised rose garden in the backyard of Rose's home on West Grand Avenue, providing the soil and plants and connecting her with a Master Gardener to complete the transformation.
Stephanie Trost, the executive director of Frontline, said she started the program with her husband, Michael Trost, a 32-year Army veteran injured in combat in Afghanistan in 2012. After 35 surgeries and three "very dark years" that eventually left him a double amputee, he started farming in Tennessee and the couple discovered the therapeutic powers of gardening for those who have been through trauma.
"I personally witnessed the transformation working the land had on him and the connection between farming and therapy," Trost said, noting they started talking with the University of Tennessee about the psychological side of it which led to the launch of Frontline Gardens.
"If you've had blood on your hands, now you can have dirt on your hands," she said. "I could get real hippie on you about it, but there's a lot of psychological processes at work when you have your hands in the dirt."
The nonprofit reaches out to military veterans and law enforcement officers injured in the line of duty and or suffering from PTSD and provides them the equipment, materials and resources needed to install a garden.
"We're still pretty new at this," Trost said, noting the trip to Hot Springs for Rose is the "farthest we've come." Their previous projects have all been in Tennessee but they hope to expand to include some surrounding areas, she said.
Rose "reached out to me and we connected right away. We're passionate about any veteran in treatment," Trost said, noting local American Legion Post 13 helped set up the garden Wednesday with herb boxes built by Sons of American Legion Post 95 of Tennessee and the wood donated by Lowe's.
Born and raised in Lafayette, La., Rose said she enlisted in the Air Force when she was 17 and served six years, deploying to Iraq twice in 2003 and 2004. She and her husband, Stephen, moved to Hot Springs about two years ago, opening a pizza restaurant, Bob's Buffet and Party Zone, which they had run successfully under a different name in the Searcy area for seven years. They moved to Hot Springs because her husband's family was here and renamed their restaurant in honor of his stepfather, but six months after they opened the COVID-19 pandemic hit and they ultimately lost the business.
"There were highs and lows in my time serving my country. I excelled academically, received numerous medals, and became a staff sergeant within my six-year career. I made some lasting friendships. Unfortunately, I also experienced being a young female in a male-dominated world, which left untold scars that ultimately have taken their toll," she said, noting she suffered "military sexual trauma" or MS PTSD.
In researching treatments for PTSD, she said she searched the internet using keywords like "gardens" and "veterans" because growing up her parents ran a garden center and landscaping business and it was something that appealed to her. After finding Frontline, she shared her dream of having a raised flower garden in her yard, noting, "I have dogs who would dig stuff up otherwise."
The mother of six children with two grandsons, Rose said she and her husband live in the upstairs part of her house while one daughter, 27, lives downstairs and "I love to look out the window at my backyard." She chose roses because "I've always liked the beauty, elegance and smell of roses. You can bring them in the house and they're durable, coming back year after year. Growing up I was always around roses and loved them."
Even though their business went under, Rose hasn't been idle, working to help other veterans in Hot Springs.
Rose joined the Veterans Clergy Partnership of the Ouachitas and "jumped right in" helping to co-lead the Vet-to-Vet Cafe, a veteran's group which meets the first Monday of every month at Rector Heights Baptist Church, along with pastors Mike and Betty Smith, Amy Thomason, chairperson for the partnership, said.
"I just love to see her reaching out to help other vets while she's dealing with her own issues," Thomason said. "She's a pretty special young woman."
Rose said the monthly meeting is a chance for veterans to get together for "partnership, community and fellowship," over coffee and refreshments and they encourage anyone from the community who is interested to come join them.
Within the next few months, Rose is also planning to add an 8-by-10-foot "bee shed" next to her garden and plans to become a beekeeper through her involvement with both Hives for Heroes, a nonprofit connecting veterans with local mentors, and Heroes to Hives, which provides nine months of online beekeeping classes.
"I'll be able to watch my bees interacting with my garden," she said. "I've already had one bee visitor since we started putting the roses in."
Rose said she also wanted to thank the Stoneworks Agency in Hot Springs and the Birdwell PTSD Foundation who are helping her get the bee shed. Rose is also a member of Homegrown by Heroes, the official farmer veteran branding program.
"Through the love of family, friends, and countless other programs that have helped me along the way, I'm able to realize my past doesn't define my life today. I want my life to be lived forward in service of God," Rose said.
"I can't wait to see where my gardening journey takes me."
For more information or to donate to Frontline Gardens, visit http://www.frontlinegardens.org.
