1/1600 second at f/1.8

I walked over to the next door neighbor's house to ask if she had seen the mother cat or either of her feral kittens.  We haven't seen any of them in weeks.  While we were standing talking, I happened to look down and see her Purple coneflowers.  I have photographed these flowers before in the same place, but at a different time of year.  What made them striking today was the beautiful rusted gate.  The deep rust color was perfect with the color of the faded flowers.  Oh, the technical stuff in the title?  I photographed this with my toy camera, but the background was too sharp - it was too confusing.  So I came home and got my Canon 6D and a 50mm lens, and then used it "wide open" at f/1.8 and the background was completely blurred.