Practicing close-ups

Three blips tonight. I continue to practice my close-up technique with varying degrees of success. The large shot is the plant from which the close-up came. I'm not sure what it is called; it's an immigrant into the garden and has spread like a weed. I would have liked the close-up to have been larger, but it lost its sharpness when I tried to zoom in further.

The third blip shows how well the Variegated Cornus has responded to my pruning.