Compare with Viburnum odoratissimum. I would imagine one end is stunted due to competition with the Callistemon in the corner.

we have no history.. since you just moved in ...

they could be a recent planting ... and the smaller ones were improperly planted.. or improperly watered.... so they are a little behind ... not that they will fail ...

they do look to my eye.. like recent plantings ... since they are so uniform ....

proper watering would NOT rely on lawn irrigation ... it does not provide water deep into the soil.. where the shrub roots are ... so they can suffer ... especially if.. as flora notes.. the larger shrub is stealing water with aggressive roots ...

dig some holes.. insure proper watering on the smaller ones.. and otherwise... give them a year or two to fill in... as if i am right about recent transplants.. they are just growing the roots they need.. to grow with vigor ... just be patient ....

maybe you can ask a neighbor w if they are newish???

if you fert your lawn .. you will NEVER have to fert the shrubs ... they will put roots under the grass.. and get what little they need there ... they are not children that will need to be fed ... and even if you dont fert your lawn.. i still dont think these will ever need fert ...

ken

Ha, this is Florida, where you put it in the ground one year and you have to beat it back with a stick the next year. Your hedges will grow beyond your wildest dreams, but you have to decide how you want them to look....formal, casual, wild. Once the rainy season kicks in, you will see. If you want geometric like across the street, just pick a height and keep clipping away at that height - the lower parts of the hedge will eventually fill in.

Going by the thickness of the trunks on the left this is not a newly planted hedge. Something has caused the bushes on the right to grow less vigorously and I suggested one possible cause. Clipping can thicken up a healthy hedge but it can’t alter suboptimal underlying growing conditions.

I don't believe you can make it more uniform just going by the nature of the plant. They can get veerrry tall and look more like trees. My neighbor had them planted between our properties and they were huge. Also, the ones on the right are probably struggling because of the tree shading it. If you don't want to pull them all out, I would suggest trimming them back...at least a third of the growth, but they will never look like your neighbors across the street. Different plant all together.

Likely improperly pruned and/or left to get scraggly from neglect. It's a fairly inexpensive and therefore common landscaping plant here. Also, there are microclimates and patches of pure sand for soil, so a lot of things that do well in one spot may fail in another not that far away. Root knot nematodes and fusarium are common here in FL too.

I do know that best practices advice is not to create 'soldiers all in a row' when planting things because some will inevitably die out.

Thank you for all of the comments on the thread. I ran a search for the property on Google maps and I found pictures of the hedge from May of 2019. They were smaller at the time so probably planted around the time the house was built in 2015. There were a lot of things around this property that were neglected so I suspect that is the cause. I'm not really sure how to check for root knot. I'll dig some holes around the shrub to inspect the soil, see if it's sandy, and do some deep watering.

The overall goal for the hedge was to have it fill in since we have a dog and I'd like it to act as a natural fence. I'm worried that it will take years to fill in at the rate its been growing but maybe with a little TLC it will grow quickly.

My lagging one is in middle of row. Always has lagged.

Keep in mind that plants are individuals. There is no such thing as uniform plant health.

Replace the lagger. Either assume that soil (deep) in the line is uniform, or get chemical analyses of the two spots.

To keep the dog in, put a green welded wire fence of the appropriate height just inside the hedge. It will keep the dog in and as the hedge grows it will become virtually invisible. As Floral said, a hedge will not contain a dog that wants to be on the other side of it.