Looks to me like hydrangea that is not yet in full bloom.

It looks like a Hydrangea, the variety might be 'Blue Billow' or from a series called Endless Summer 'Twist - n - Shout' or 'Pop Star' (all three look alike to me) which are all available in the USA.

It’s a variety of hydrangea called Lacecap. The blossoms never fully open.

It is the flower of a lacecap hydrangea and it is in full bloom! Or very close to it. Lacecaps are composed of the large exterior showy, sterile flowers surrounding a dense cluster of tiny fertile flowers - the center portion that looks unopened. This is compared to the more traditional mophead form that consists almost entirely of the large sterile flowers clustered together as a rounded ball or 'mophead'.

Various different species of hydrangeas can produce lacecap flower but they are most often seen with Hydrangea macrophylla - bigleaf hydrangea - or their close cousins, H. serrata.

@Olychick - another before dawn rising west coaster?? Or have you moved east and I didn't realize? It's barely 4 am here!

I seem to be defaulting to graveyard sleep schedule on these long summer nights. Just headiing to bed, lol. I was thinking tha same about you being up so early!

I have a Lady in Red lacecap hydrangea which looks similar. Definitely on the right track looking for a lacecap variety. Not sure it is the same as Lady in Red though, as they can be deceiving in a photo.

is that photo a bit photo-shopped? .. or was it taken at the precise moment of time at dusk with pink sky.. when you can capture this type of color pic?

ken

My landscaper planted something similar at my last house, and I have them at this house. I find them SO frustrating, I just want them to bloom into big, colored balls!

I have a blue one and a pinkish one and yes I find them frustrating as well for the same reason. I want all of those little flowers to open as well. Hydrangeas are a very common plant where I live and some of them are so very showy.

Lace caps are very common here too. If you have the space, Hydrangea aspera subsp Sargentiana is a cracker with big downy leaves.

Asperas are also one of the least hardy of any hydrangea variety, generally rated for zone 7 and above. And because they flower on growth produced in the previous year, subject to loss of flowering due to winter dieback or late spring freezes.

I have one of those. Yes, a lacecap hydrangea. It flowered well this year while other varieties did not.

We have a Hydrangea mariesii variegata on each side of our steps to the front porch. Their flower form is like this. But I love them most for their variegated leaves which are most strongly variegated when they form in hot weather. They are easily are nipped back by winter cold, as they were this year, meaning that the bushes are shorter and we got no flowers.

Our native hydrangea in Missouri does not have the pink-blue spectrum. But it is charming and very common. It's a good shrub for those who want to concentrate on natives in the midwest:

I love Lacecaps and yes they can be that blue especially if you have acid soil. I like the lateral look of the flattish bloom pattern - showy in their own way,

I love lace caps! They are showy in their own way but you might have to look closely. The following photos are of my Aspera Plum Passion. the blue color is from the fertile blossoms and the white are infertile. Plum Passion is a bee magnet! You can almost feel the buzz as you walk by and the bees ignore you. I have counted up to 15 bees on one blossom!

" is that photo a bit photo-shopped? .. or was it taken at the precise moment of time at dusk with pink sky.. when you can capture this type of color pic? "

It was edited with Photoscape, but I didn't adjust the colours.....I cropped it, increased the sharpness, and decreased the contrast a bit to keep the white flowers from overpowering the purple and pink ones. Otherwise, it was taken with a Sony mirrorless Alpha 6000, on a sunny day, sometime before lunch.

Thank you to everyone for your help. I'd only ever previously seen the "mophead" hydrangeas.

HYDRANGEA JAPONICA COERULEA