Arbaro

NOTE: consider using Sapling instead of Arboro.

Arbaro is a third-party developed app which has some basic plant life (bushes, trees, etc) that can be customized and exported as a Wavefront OBJ, which can be imported into Blender.

The program can be downloaded at http://sourceforge.net/projects/arbaro/

To run the program, you'll also need the Java development sdk: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

Once you download and unzip the arbaro zip file, follow the instructions in the readme to get it running.

I used the following commands to bring up the GUI:

     cd <arbaro directory>

     java -jar arbaro.jar -p pov/quaking_aspen.pov -o \

           pov/quaking_aspen.inc trees/quaking_aspen.xml 

When launched correctly the GUI should look like this.

You can browse through File > Open to see what other base objects are available.

To export a mesh, File > Export, and in the export window, set the Export Format to Wavefront OBJ and set the desired path.

Next, in Blender, do an Import and browse to the newly created OBJ file.

The mesh is high-poly, but looks really good.  This will help save time if you need some detailed plants in your scene.