I have 26 Japanese Maples, most purchased as very tiny first or second year plants, and I do no winter protection on them and haven't lost a one in nine years. Get them well established with proper watering this fall, mulch them well, and leave them alone. As far as the Crape Myrtles, in my own experience it depends on how the winter winds move throughout your yard. I will give you a hint on managing them even though it makes me look like an idiot- When I first moved here in '07 I had no idea how to manage many of this zones plants. Spring was an extremely amazing time- I had come from South Florida, so spring was a novelty to me. Every morning I would rush out to look at my new plantings to see buds or leaves. I got busy doing my spring chores- pruning and so on. My first year with Crape Myrtles here (we had them in SoFla as well) they never budded. I always thought the winter had gotten them and pruned them back knowing that the roots had probably survived and they had. They always came back, but seemed to die back every winter. I saw nice big mature Crape Myrtles in my neighborhood, though, and couldn't figure out where I went wrong. Then I had a family emergency year where I had next to no time to garden. I would go out, check the Crape Myrtles for growth and think "I really need to cut those back" but I could never find the time. Finally in about May they budded out! All up and down the stems, too- not just from root growth. That's my very long winded way of saying that they can be VERY late to leaf out. All those years I had cut them back in my early spring frenzy I had been cutting off viable stems. DUH me. I do no winter protection here except for a very few mophead hydrangeas. I try to select good plants for my zone, grow them well, and aside from that they are on their own. I think your plants will be fine.

I have Japanese Maples that have gone 2 weeks outdoors without watering in cooler weather, albeit smaller trees (12-15") in bigger (2-2 1/2 gallon) pots. My GM is quarter inch 1-1-1 Pine, granite, turface. You'd be surprised how much moisture GM holds. That being said, I don't know ficus and I don't want to be the one to give you bad advice that damages/kills your plant. I'd try to get someone to water them...if you can't, I'd turn the heat down as low as they will tolerate, cover the Top of the pot to prevent evaporation and put a curtain in the window to cut down or eliminate the amount of direct sunlight the receive.

By coincidence, I have a similar problem. Twenty-five years ago (at least) I planted a dwarf mugo Pine in a small area at the front corner of my house. Two years ago, I finally decided it had to go, looking seriously overgrown for its site. I put a dwarf Meyer Lemon there. Two years later, I’ve had to prune it multiple times to keep it in bounds. Unlike my other dwarf Meyer Lemon which naturally keeps to about 5x5, this one sends out 3’ long branches from multiple sites. And it has vicious thorns, something my older Meyer Lemon lacks, so I think I have an incorrectly labeled plant. All this to say, I think a true Dwarf Lemon might be a good choice. There are probably other dwarf citrus that you could choose. They are evergreen, with foliage that looks good all year and the fruit is very decorative. Also a variegated Calamondin orange (a form of mandarin orange) is very colorful and slow growing and easily prunable. Check out this link [Dwarf Citrus[(https://www.houzz.com/magazine/dwarf-citrus-trees-offer-miniature-size-with-maximum-flavor-stsetivw-vs~89268651) Another choice would be a dwarf conifer. There are hundreds of wonderful dwarf conifers to choose among. Some grow as little as an inch or two annually, others more. They come in all shapes, from ridiculously skinny to wider than tall. And in many colors. I‘ve just given away the misnamed lemon tree and I think I will choose a substitute in the pine family, either a bristle cone pine cultivar, a Pinus edulis cultivar or a Pinus mugo cultivar. I love Valley Cushion, a mugo pine cultivar. I once grew Pinus edulis at the front of my house too. Very attractive, very slow growing, and also lasted about 25 years before it got too big. For your area, I think Pinus edulis might do well. They are very slow.

Beyond that it's anyone's guess. It's not as simple as tree A will live to age X and tree B will live to age Y. Trees also don't just stop growing at some designated height or spread. You can find averages for these aspects, but while I'm pretty sure a parrot will outlive a dog, I don't know how old each will be with precision. I'm not sure what your goal is ... you said you plan to recommend these trees to lots of people. Are you trying to landscape a subdivision or something? Are you wanting to plant a single type of tree in every site? What is this list for? I'm not familiar with tons of varieties of evergreens, but whether something can come down without climbers or bucket trucks isn't solely dependent on size. The neighbor's last ailing tree (40'ish cherry) could have been dropped across our yard ... if we didn't mind it destroying our perennial garden and cobblestone paths; a bucket truck was brought in. Their current dead tree (50'ish hickory) is capable of hitting houses or wiping out the street, or it could kill several other trees on its way down if felled ... it will also need a bucket truck. The 35' branch that had to be removed off one of our 75'-100' white pines was removed by suspending it off of the pine itself and two nearby oaks and lowered (thankfully not just dropping on all the understory trees it was looming over). There were aerialists and a little vehicle (pulled lines and hauled log chunks) but not bucket truck on that removal. Our Eastern Red Cedar is about 35' tall and it was probably 20'ish in the early 80s, no idea how old it is, but we do know it's been hit by lightning twice (and had its top reshaped). Every mature tree on our property, except the serviceberry, requires an aerialist or bucket truck to prune. For a while the Bradford pear (no commentary on its existence, please) could be pruned with a pole, but it needs a bucket truck too now that it's probably 25'-30' tall. It was the last holdout. So I wouldn't count on any tree never requiring a bucket truck or climber. The birds love our yew shrub (we hate our yew ... though if it didn't have to be pruned multiple times a year/was in a different spot it might be more acceptable). They also love forsythias and quince, though. There's definitely nests in the cedar, and I'm pretty sure several of the oaks, maples, and cherries have nests in them. It depends on the bird what tree they'll build in. One word about hedge style planting, my grandfather planted a hedge hemlocks, and they were great and beautiful until one in the middle had an issue. It's nearly impossible to replace a tree that's 25' tall and planted tightly, and the two on the sides of the hole lacked green towards the hole because they had previously been growing into the missing tree. I don't recall whether they took down the whole hedge or moved and the next owners did it; the hedge no longer exists. Price of tree ... what's your definition of small?