This is a high-contrast scene: the bright sky can easily fool the meter and make the tree exposure less than ideal. A few practical fixes:

• Use evaluative metering with exposure compensation, or spot meter from the outer leaves rather than the darker shadows inside the tree.
• In difficult light, switch to manual and meter from the brightest important area, then adjust so highlights don’t blow out.
• Shoot RAW if possible. It gives you much more room to recover highlight and shadow detail than JPEG.
• Try a smaller aperture such as f/8. That can improve sharpness with the kit lens, which helps leaf texture look clearer.
• If possible, shoot when the light is more even, or on a clearer day. An overcast bright sky creates a very wide dynamic range and can look like a featureless bright mass.

So the main issue is not just exposure, but also scene contrast and lens sharpness. Expose carefully for the important bright areas, use compensation as needed, and process the RAW file afterward for the best result.