I'll admit that I become dumbfounded and deranged when I see my neighbors here in Delaware cut down their old trees. Inevitably they cut down a fine strand of old growth hardwoods, and then move to New Jersey within a year. The natural areas in Delaware are drying up and becoming developments of McMansions. The old neighborhood where I live is lucky to have the rich canopy of 75-year-old trees protecting us from wind and rain, but the chopping continues unabated. The ignorance is staggering.

For the past three years I've been priding myself on my ability to let all of the trees that naturally plant themselves around my house grow as big as they can, leaving them unravaged by my lawnmower. Over the last two months, many of these trees that are nearing six to 10 feet in height started to develop some kind of yellow blight. The leaves of some are so gnarled they look like seed pods. Almost every leaf is spotted with yellow dots and some branches are ringed by a fuzzy yellow corrosion. I thought I might wait it out and let the trees fight the infection off and maybe next year they'll grow back big and strong and blight free. But then I reconsidered. I took a small saw and cut every last infected sapling down and stuffed them all into my big green garbage can. I love trees like a tree-hugging hippy, but those nasty saplings had to go. I was afraid they might somehow infect their giant parent tree above them all. Considering that most of their stems had been cut in the past, I know they'll be back next year. I might even let them grow up and see if the blight is gone. If so, let it grow. But if it's nasty, with that yellow fuzz spreading across its surface, I'll tear it limb from limb. - Seizureman