Here is a high sample render of my bush (with no other particle systems on) and a low sample render of my whole scene with the bush. I am really happy with how the bush came out. The sapling add on is crazy fun to play with and can see myself getting lost in it when creating scenery for a game or video render.
I did my bush a little differently than the solution. I added another set of branches off of the first ones to give it a bit more volume. I used the paint tool to (sloppily) add the flowers and leaves. One thing I noticed and I am not sure if it is just the perspective but some of them appear smaller which is really cool. They are a bit flat but I am sure there is a way to make them look better.
EDIT: I have also discovered that I can only seem to render with my CPU now. Not sure if it has to do with particles (If that was mentioned I missed it/forgot). My lamp renders were fine with GPU but trying to render this even at low samples crashes Blender, and one time my display shut off and I had to reboot.
