Landscape Struggle

I'm trying to paint a landscape of some wetlands near my house and I just can't get it. The water was the biggest challenge, and then the damn dead tree - which was supposed to be the focal point and is just getting worse and worse the more I paint.

I will keep going until I work some stuff out, but this will never be a work of beauty.

I'm posting 3 versions so you can see the changes. Hopefully I won't get so frustrated that I scratch the whole thing out before I learn what I need to learn. Or maybe I just throw in the towel now and start another one.