Hey Nature Peeps, an update on my foreground bushes: seeking more defination and lower poly counts, I deviated a tiny bit from my earlier approach and came up with this:

Not only am I super happy as to how its turning out, using GN to distribute the alpha leaves card results in a triangle count of 2! (The 2 extra triangles in the stats above are for the floor plane)
The above render is with basic diffuse texture only. Yet to dig into the materials.