In the Shadows

Yesterday morning, my neighbor's yard was largely in the shadows.

I'm not really happy with this image. In real life, it was mistier and softer. This was shot on "intelligent auto" mode of my little purse camera. I knew I'd have some blown highlights where the sun was peeking through the tree, but I didn't have time to mess around - I was heading off to work. I did play with shadows, highlights, camera RAW, some adjustment layers, and a couple of textures (which I ended up not using), but after all that, this image isn't much different than the SOC photo.

Any ideas on how to bring out that fine layer of mist against the far treeline, and generally make this photo more interesting would be gratefully accepted and tried out.