Paul,

You can paint any object as an ecoSystem, whether it be a static plant or a solidgrowth plant. I like Linda plants (LUSH) and use them almost exclusively. They are a nice balance of realism and poly count- and work well both at a distance and somewhat close up.

You're best off getting the 'packs' of plants, rather than one or two. I'd also suggest downloading the ZIP version of a file and storing it somewhere on your computer. Just uncompress and then create a folder in your plants or objects directory and move the unzipped contents there.

-C