I agree that a crop would help the picture but I'm not happy with yours JMitchell. By putting the horizon in the middle you split the picture in two so it's not really a picture of either the sky or the ground. And while the tree is on the right-hand third it's too central to really provide a focal point.
I would crop the sky down to the top of the blue section and crop the ground up to remove the lighter band across the foreground which I think is distrating. That would leave the horizon close to the lower third with the two trees close to the intersection with the right-hand third.
What does work on JMitchell's picture is the way he has boosted the contrast and saturation. That really adds punch to the image and I would love to see that effect with the crop I suggested.
Still, it's a good picture as it stands
