True. Luckily I have some armature photography experience, or my pics would probably look just as bad. Some times you're limited by the camera, and cell-phone cam's are notoriously bad.
At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all; Here are some easy tips that come to mind:
1. Experiment with the settings on your camera, and the area in which you're shooting. The best picks I've seen are out doors under natural light, with a flash to fill in the shadows.
2. Turn your flash to "low" and try scotch-taping a small piece of paper over the flash to tone it down. You can even cover part of the flash with your finger on closeups. Note: When taking closeup shots directly under your lights, usually no flash is needed.
3. When shooting under HPS (or 2700k) turn your camera setting to "incandescent" It's usually the one that looks like a little light bulb on indoor light settings. This will adjust for the red and orange glow. Try turning the HPS's off and using different lighting. You're plants won't mind. Experiment
4. Most newer cameras have a macro setting for super closeups. Flash is usually disabled by default, but the shutter speed is much longer, so a tripod may help you to get clearer shots.
5. Focus! How rudimentary is this?
6. Take a few shots at different angles, distances, and lighting, then weed out the bad ones (delete) the blurry ones.
7. You can get nice macro (closeup) shots even if your digital camera doesn't have a macro setting. Pickup a set of magnifying glasses at radio shack for $8 and electrical tape any of them to the front of your lens. I took this shot using this technique. You can actually tell what sex this plant is by the photo! LOL