Laagarden: You have serious borer injury at the base of your tree. Get out to Wal-Mart or wherever else you buy your stuff, and find a box of mothballs. Push a dozen or so of them into the soil close to the trunk of the tree. The mothballs will kill the borers and prevent them from recurring, although the damage to your tree may be permanent. Renew the mothballs every season, and you will not see this damage again. Borers arrive at trees as moths, and if mothballs are there they will leave you alone. Mothballs do not damage the tree or anything else, regardless of what you may read on the internet. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

It is propagated by cuttings, so you won't get seedlings anywhere. They're all cultivars, even if the cultivar name isn't specified. Resin

You can get rid of a boat load of aphids and spider mites by the careful spraying of plain water to blast them away. Not so strong that you could cause plant damage, but enough to get rid of the critters. Spider mites tend to congregate on the underside of foliage, so pay some attention to that location. Use your fingers, too, to help squish. Then, you might try an application of insecticidal soap, mixed according to label directions. Again, direct the spray to all parts of the plant. I've found that spider mites can be controlled by applications of alcohol and water (in a 1:4 ratio). Save that remedy for when you bring your plant inside or out of the direct sunlight. Same goes for the soap, too. I should say that spider mites can be very difficult to get rid of entirely. Aphids, not so much. But you will have to do a much better job at observing your plant from now on, so that you can continue treatments. Pest populations like that don't occur overnight.

We had one in at our last place that was probably 60 feet (20 meters) across, and it was just getting going. But I also see them spaced a lot closer usually. By the way, they're not actually maples, but are in a different family altogether.