Thanks tim. Prior to cropping, I thought long and hard about those "weeds" on the bottom left. I left it for two reasons - a) The scene is mostly white - from snow. While there is a bit of texture on the land, it is hard to see with all that white all over. I left the "weed" to give that sense of land, and that the trees are not just floating...in the middle of nowhere...
b) To add perspective - to establish near-far & indirectly a sense of distance to the trees based on our knowledge of how tall the grass naturally is....
But I see your point. In the sense of minimalistic artistry - the weed is "clutter". I will possibly have a version 2 of this with and without for the sake of zen & michael kenna