Coral Tree Hallucination

This is one of those pictures where I've latched on to some obscure detail that is lending the photo merit in my mind despite having at least one glaring flaw.

The merit:  I like the post-processing.  Yeah, it's totally over-the-top.  But I wanted a dreamy, other-worldly look; kind of like something out of Kurosawa's Dreams.  I think I accomplished that.

The glaring flaw:  I shot it with too small an aperture and everything in the background is in focus, making the whole thing just too damn busy.  If only I had opened up the lens to throw those houses of out of focus...

I don't normally show my alternate versions, but I thought it might be fun in this case.  Here it is.  Instead of going for a wild hallucinatory vibe, I was trying to make it look like it was in Hobbiton - warm, fuzzy, tranquil, pass the pipeweed.  Once again, I'm happy with the post-processing execution, but I still see the flaw...