Optimal Foliage (grasses)?

I just made grass via speedtree and the performance was so much better but now I’m having trouble bringing my pine trees down to 3k tris in speedtree. I think the pines are responsible for 80% to 90% of the total tri count as they are just planes. i think now the total tri count for a pine tree is around 9k-10k, which was an improvement from 30k. As soon as i add the trees procedurally my computer slows down considerably. Another problem is the pines on the tree look bad, and i do not know how to remedy the situation. I am trying to achieve a full but i do not know how this is done. I am trying to find a balance