Close up of flowers in my yard

Like most people I have been taking pictures for a long time. Even though I had an SLR I never pushed to gain any technical skills. Purchasing a digital SLR however changed that. I guess I am too lazy for teh film to be processed. With digital photography I found it was not only fast (no processing etc) but it allows one to make plenty of mistakes and learn from them. Plus there is a lot of information embedded in the image itself making analysis of the photographs a lot easier. Earlier I used to take notes for each picture. Not anymore. Having said that I decide to start by taking simple pictures right in my own yard. There are ample opportunities to take pictures with contrasting clours, details, long exposures, high speed macro etc. As in there are plenty of flowers, insects, bees, bugs, and creepie crawlies around. My intent is to start here and start with simple pictures and then move on to more technical photogrpahy. Any input from anyone on how to improve is always welcome. The two pictures below are a simple attempt to vary depth of field on a close up shot. They are both taken using a 70-210 zoom but the main difference is the F stop or F Number. The first picture has a smaller aperture (larger F Number) thereby giving it more depth of field. Notice that the leaves behind the flower are clear. The second picture has a larger aperture (smaller F Number) thereby emphasizing on the flower and not the world behind it.
Name	Value	Name	Value
Equip Make	KONICA MINOLTA	Equip Model	MAXXUM 7D
Exposure Time	0.01	F Number	18.0
Exposure Prog	Shutter priority	ISO Speed	100
Focal Length	160.0
EXIF Property HTML Tag created by: ExifPropertyViewer

Name	Value	Name	Value
Equip Make	KONICA MINOLTA	Exposure Time	0.001
F Number	5.6	Exposure Prog	Aperture priority
ISO Speed	100	Date Orig	2006:05:12 21:57:11
Focal Length	180.0
EXIF Property HTML Tag created by: ExifPropertyViewer