The only time I have seen that happen to any plant including a "corylus contorta", or Harry Lauders Waling Stick, is after someone sprayed the plant with a "weed" killer. Even some over spray will do that.

google filbert blight.. and look for the corpuscles associated with such ...

mine got to about 10 years... then failed due to such ....

ken

Thanks Kimmsr and ken adrian. I don't think spraying is the problem, but admittedly it is the street side of the tree that is most affected. And I don't see any lesions of any kind on it, except the newest growth--you can see in the second pic above the newest growth tips look rotted. But in the first pic you can see some brown leaves.

Hmm, the friend says everyone else on the street has landscapers for their properties, so I wonder. But this tree is at least 50' from any other property line.

HEre's another pic closer up, but unfortunately not the best focus...

A strong recommendation from the manufacturers of herbicides is to not spray on windy days because of the real possibilty of the spray being moved on the wind great distances. That is often ignored by the applicators. If one of these companies employees would apply an herbicide in the rain why would a bit of wind stop them if they are scheduled to spray that day?

My 10 year old looks like that this year too. Every other year it is completely full of leaves. I like it being less leafy but many branches are dead. I usually remove dead wood but on this tree it is the wood that looks good.

I just looked and find that my tree is half covered with filbert blight. It was getting too big for the spot anyway. Thanks for the diagnosis, Ken. I think I will grow a clematis through the dead branches for as long as they hold up.

Now that I look more closely I see there are a few leaves with brownish spots, and admittedly it hasn't stopped blowing here--today looks pretty calm, first in a long time. I know because I've been waiting to do a little Rounding Up of my own...