Geometry or transparent cards for tree leaves?

I've read so many terrible things about the perf on iOS when using transparent alpha-tested shaders that I wonder if it might not just be better for perf to make each leaf a piece of simple (6-poly, double-sided) geometry. It's not a really demanding use case - just a few trees at a time, not a whole forest - but the leaves can get very close to the camera, which would mean the whole scene could conceivably be seen through transparent pixels at certain points.

Thoughts?

 

Done and done. Thanks!