Here's the setup that made the 2014 09 18 image. I saturated purple as much as I could, to make those tiny leaves stand out, so you could see them better. Yeah, that's how small they really are.
You can see the focusing rails (Kirk) and the ballhead (Arca-Swiss). I set the ballhead for the composition I wanted, and then I moved the camera back and forth on the rails until the leaves were in focus (at least as much as they could be). Fortunately, there was no wind. If the leaves had been moving, this shot would have been impossible to make.
When I learn to make images for "focus stacking," I'll make an image, back out (or in) a millimeter or so, make another one, and so on. Then Photoshop will put them together and the entire object will appear in focus. I haven't tried that yet.
Now that I've shown the camera, I might as well say what it is, for those who don't recognize it: Nikon D810, with the Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 mounted. I'm shooting almost directly into the sun, so I mounted the sunshade. Usually for macro photography it's not needed.