I don't know its name but it looks like it needs water.

Could it be a mislabeled shrub? The flowers and leaves do not look "right". The flower sepals on the first picture are not too clear (I know; white a toughie for me too when taking photos!) but what I see does not resemble your average one.

I don't know, but I would compare to Hydrangea paniculata pictures first.

Virtually ALL hydrangea "trees" are some sort of paniculata, but the cultivars can vary. Macrophyllas and other 'old wood' varieties do not lend themselves to the routine pruning these need and they also are extremely difficult to train into a single, clear trunk. And Annabelles and other arborescens just produce too large an inflorescence on too weak of a stem to make a good standard.

But......having said that, I've never seen any cultivar of paniculata that produced flowers in that manner......or any other hydrangea species for that matter. I'd be somewhat suspect of this plant -- not that it isn't a hydrangea (definitely is) but that there may be something else amiss with it. Perhaps a virus. Or maybe just stressed from hanging out at HD without proper attention :-) I'd wait and see. Regardless, you'll still be within their gauranty period if you confirm next season that all is not well. And jean's right....give that puppy a good drink!!

If it wouldn't be the such unusual flowers pattern on a stem I would of call it a very poorly trained PG tree.

Whatever kind of tree this is, it is beautiful! This is an old thread but I'd love to see an update.

Hello! I just saw the latest comment. Thank you! I think it was beautiful too. I have a feeling that it was a regular PeeGee that was abused into an interesting form but we'll see. It successfully survived the winter and is just beginning to put out leaves right now. I'll post some pictures once it blooms, probably in a month or two.