Provence Poppies II, 12x12

Sorting through the studio.....
.......I ran across a painting from 6 or 7 years ago that I had done in the studio using a small Provence field sketch as reference.  I remembered at the time being dissatisfied with it but went ahead and put it in a gallery for a short time, but it didn't sell.

After getting it back home I must have worked on it a bit and given up, not clicking on what it was lacking.  I could remember the scene clearly, but didn't know how to make the lines and busyness of the foreground weave my eye into the mid and background.

This is what it originally was posted as back in 2012:

2012 Version

The photo may not have been that great but even so the piece is flat and uninteresting to my eye.  The horizontal and diagonal lines were dominating.  My eye skipped over the poppies and ended on the white flower bush in the mid-distance....and got stuck there.  The background I liked. 

It seemed to me I needed to make the poppies more interesting, subdue the mid-ground flowers, and find a few more verticals.  After making those adjustments I thought it looked better....yet I was still dissatisfied.

That's when that large cumulus cloud in the background was added as a vertical element, one that subtly mimicked the tree shape.  Satisfaction level got lifted.  Perhaps it should be a larger painting.  Beats me.  What do you think?

Thanks for looking!