Day 10: Gradient - Color Club "Shabby Drab" and "Rad Nomad"

My inspiration for this gradient manicure is an ornamental cabbage that my parents have. It looked like this back at Thanksgiving:

Now that it's January, though, the purple has faded deeper into the green, so the plant is almost totally purple even though there is still a hint of green. When I tried to recreate this gradient on my nails, though, I couldn't get the shading right. Here's what the first attempt looked like:

This photo was taken at dusk with a flash, but you can still see how pretty the purple leaves of the cabbage look. I started with a layer of Color Club's "Rad Nomad," a dark lavender from the Back to Boho collection, and then sponged on some OPI "Green-wich Village" at the base of my nails. I then sponged on some Color Club "Shabby Drab," a lighter lavender from the Back to Boho collection, and then more of the "Rad Nomad" at the tips. I wasn't happy with how the gradient looked, so I stippled on some no-name glitter mixture from that Pretty Woman set I got for Christmas. 

I re-did this design a couple of days later, but I think it looks worse than my first attempt:

I left off the green and the glitter and tried to fade the lighter "Shabby Drab" base into the darker "Rad Nomad" on the tips. Maybe I should have used different colors because I still don't like the end result.

What do you think? I had a hard time getting my gradient to "gradiate." Do you have this problem, too?