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.
