I'd shroud this entire model with foliage as if it was almost a tunnel pathway through some exotic jungle setting, I think it would be really cool.

Ivy generated in blender, it works pretty nicely.  I got to go further and make a proper leaf with an alpha channel and all that jazz at some point, but that should be relatively easy.  Thanks for the suggestion @SydneyKeys

Good work Vulcan wink As an idea to get variation in the color and shape of the leaves in Blender, you can separate the UVs into several parts by doing several random selects(edit menu) and doing a different unwrap for each of the selections (dividing the UV space into four for example...) With a variation it will improve a lot...