The tiny garden in the home we are renting has a couple of things I am unfamiliar with. Everything is overly pruned into submission so it may be that I just don't recognise them in this form. This one is very full on the side facing south but you can see in the lat photo how the reverse looks. I am in zone 9A, just southeast of Jacksonville.




This one is ringing a bell but I am just not sure. Could it be a Duranta, the small leafed variety?

I'm not good at shrub ID since I don't have many.
the 1st may be a type of Yew.
I don't think that 2nd one is a Duranta. Mine are blooming like crazy this time of year. And they are hard to keep that short.
You could send the pics to the St John's Ext Office for a positive ID.

I really think the first one is a perennial that has been pruned like a shrub. I am thinking it gets yellow flowers, the foliage reminds me of something I have seen. The one I think is a duranta is also pruned and any flowering branches would have been trimmed off. Everything at this house has been "meatballed" with hedge trimmers.
I had used no chemicals at my former, recently sold, home. Here, where we are renting, there is a bug guy that sprays for household insects; a lawn guy that sprays fungicide, fertilizer and insecticide on the lawn; then there is the guy with the hedge clippers who also sprays the shrubbery for who knows what. By the time we leave this house we will be pickled.

ardesia said:

looks like a golden leaves privet (such as Ligustrum sinense 'Sunshine' )

Yes, thank you, that is the yellow one for sure.

The leaves on the first one look a lot like Texas Sage, but I don't know if it grows up here in 9a. It usually is covered with small purple flowers in the summer, but it can get big, which probably explains the pruning.

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