Unless they're one of the super dwarf varieties, even the Weigelas are going to end up being at least 3 to 4 feet tall and wide I inherited an obviously non-super dwarf Wiegela. 3-4' wide is a serious understatement unless you prune religiously. Ditto the 3-4' tall. You might want to find out if the Fire Department has the right to prune your Wiegelas, should they decide they're overgrown. And whether the local government has a policy on what you can plant near a fire hydrant, and how close. I live on a state road (little 2-lane blacktop, 45 mph semi-rural school bus route) and it's amazing the rules for the 20' of my yard adjacent to the blacktop. Completely different rules for uphill and downhill situations, downhill being more stringent. And if they don't like whatever's growing there, they just chop it off with their long-armed Blade of Death and Destruction. No warning ahead of time: just however the driver decides to interpret state law on your particular stretch of road that morning. Weeping cherry overhanging the road? Not anymore! Brush too close to the side of the road? Just cut it off at ground level! [It wasn't my weeping cherry, and the lifelong-resident neighbors who own it didn't even notice some of it was shorter -- but they were shocked at what I told them. The trimmed brush belonged to the neighbor farther north.]

What a super job you're doing, You said you painted the front door area yourself. What brand of paint and what color did you use? At our former home, we saw this beautiful chinese red color on a house in an elite neighborhood. Tried to copy it's shutters and front door. I found out the owner's name and called and asked or maybe I wrote to them and asked if they knew the paint brand/paint color they used. The owner said it had been on for a long time but she had saved the can in case they wanted to redo the paint job. I took the information, went to that brand of paint store and had them to mix up the same formula and it was so thin. We always used Duron paints for about 25 yrs. but that wasn't Duron, so I took it to my friendly Duron Paint Store Mgr. and asked her if she could match that color. She asked me if I had added water to the paint, but I hadn't done nothing but stir it and try it on the front door. She worked for way over an hour trying to match that paint and when we paid up, she told me to tell the painter that she had recommended highly to use a black or navy blue primer before applying the red paint. Said red is the hardest color to cover over or blend in. The painter had never used those dark colors before and was skeptical but used a battleship grey instead(what he had in his stock probably)and his employee put 3 coats of the Duron paint on and it still didn't cover. You could see the brush steaks. Finally, I accepted it but wished I had agreed so easily. We kind of ran in similar situation when we painted the front door here a burgundy color.

Yep, I am in North Carolina, zone 7/8. Crape myrtles are EVERYWHERE here, so I have no concerns about them not growing. I guess one of the questions I need to answer is would I rather keep the crapes and have privacy in 1-2 years, but for only 8 months of the year? Or do I want to move things around and plant a wall of evergreens and not have much privacy for 5 years. If I keep the crapes I may spread them out a bit more. Right now there is 10 ft. between each, but I would like to increase that to at least 12-13ft. I don't really like the look of a crape myrtle hedge where every tree is growing together. Another thought I had was keeping the "miami" crapes trimmed so that they grow a little bit underneath the "natchez" ones, as they are naturally smaller growing anyway. The dogwood I have planted in the photos is in a spot that has about 5 ft. of land between the fence and the retaining wall. Is this too tight? If not, I may move the dogwood and put a crape myrtle there, which may even give me 14ft. between each crape myrtle. Nope I cannot raise the height of my fence at all. My lot is sloped downward a little, so if I play fetch with my dog then my neighbors can't see me which is nice. But if we are on our porch we are very exposed.

How tall do you need it to be? Choisya ternata, Mexican orange - will eventually grow to 8' x 8' (evergreen) Ceanothus 'Victoria' can get to be around 10' x 12' (evergreen) Morella californica, Pacific wax Myrtle - 15' x 15' (evergreen) Cotinus 'Grace' - maybe 20' x 15' Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snow Queen' - 8' x 8' You would only need a single specimen of any of these in that space to provide a reasonable degree of privacy screening. And there are bunch of lower growing shrubs that work as well, as well as a wide number of dwarf conifers. I hesitate to suggest the more common privacy shrubs like laurel or holly as they are both borderline invasive here.