No training required or even necessary. The shrub produces the twisted, gnarly stems all on its own. Growth is listed as "moderate" so it depends on how large your shrubs are now before they may be of adequate size for you to harvest. It can get to around 10' but even reaching that height may not provide optimum time for the stems to thicken and develop enough for your purpose. It suckers and can form dense thickets. And it produces some serious thorns that can result in sepsis if they get you, so prune carefully :-))

I also live in Virginia, and was thinking about the British hedge for privacy reasons. I took a roadtrip in the UK several years ago, and my first notice of hedgerows was while driving a one-lane country road in my car rental. The roads were extremely narrow, with little room for mistakes. Initially, I feared accidentally scratching the paint while maintaining the center of the lane. Then, my fear turned into terror when the hedgerows intermittently vanished in favor of a stone walls. It scared the crap out of me. Needless to say, the hedgerows return was a welcome sight. I know I am writing this well after the first post, but for anyone wanting a look at hedgerow building, you should check out Season 2, Episode 6 of Clarkson's Farm on Amazon Prime. As for the "Americans are lazy" comment.. Americans rank relatively high as one of hardest working people in the world, especially against most developed countries. I do think Americans wouldn't take the time to maintain a hedge, but I believe it is more about 'how' they prioritize their time. Even I have berated my brother on the amount of time he spends on his yard. I have commented to him that he spends more time on maintaining it, rather than enjoying it.

I am interested in what is the natural spread of rose viruses. In designing any experiment one normally calculates the number of samples required to obtain a result that has a 95% confidence level. I think the results of this type of calculation for rose virus spread are interesting. If the natural spread in a field is 1% a year and one checked the field at the end of one year, one would have to examine 2377 plants to be able to report the results as having a 95% confidence level (1.0 +/- 0.4)%. If the natural spread in a field is 4% a year, and one checked the field at the end of one year; one would have to examine 9220 plants to be able to report the results as having a 95% confidence level (4.0 +/- 0.4)%. To be able to report a (4 +/- 1)% spread, the number of plants should be 1475. To be able to report a (4 +/- 2)% spread number, one would need to examine 369 plants. To be able to report a (4 +/- 3)% spread number, one would need to examine 164 plants. The number of plants required for a quantitative study are probably larger than what most researchers would want to undertake. Another approach is a qualitative study to see if the spread is non zero. If designed correctly, positive results of such a study would have a definite meaning but negative results would not. An example of such a study appears to be the published paper by R. H. Converse and A. B. Bartlett, Plant Disease Reporter, volumn 63, pages 441-444, (1979). They studied 21 wild rose plants from 17 Oregon, U.S.A. locations. 5 plants out of the 20 that were tested by agar-gel diffusion (1 plant was not tested) were found to have tobacco streak virus. The positive testing plants came from 4 of the 17 sites (2 positive out of 2 tested from one site; 1 out of 1 tested from another site; 1 out of 3 from another; and 1 out of 1 from another). (The wild rose was not identified in the paper, I suspect that it was R. Setigera.) Here is a link that might be useful: Link to do your own calculations

Greenbud, lucky for you my lazy self just happened to notice that my North American Landscape Trees by Arthur Lee Jacobson was right next to my computer. It's really the most thorough, useful and exhaustive guide to this topic, whatever people may say about a certain writer whose name rhymes with 'her'. Alas, he just says "Seldom sold in North America" and dismisses its ornamental value. I feel like I encountered the very odd (for Americans) word "sloe" in my past plant shopping experiences. If I were less lazy I'd go peruse my Forestfarm catalogs going back to the early 1990s. But it's been a long week and it's going to be a longer weekend ;-). I suspect that was a nursery that once offered it. Good luck, but unfortunately, they don't quite have the selection they used to. Another couple to check would be the two big PNW mail order fruit tree emporiums, One Green World and Raintree Nursery.