How could I make tree leaves be removed?

I don't mean custom tree leaves, I mean leaves in general, I am trying to add into my Herobrine mod a way of making trees lose their leaves after some time, I tried using a procedure that triggered a /replace command but that caused too much lag or crashed the game, also tried making when the entity spawns near leaves it replaced them with air blocks but that also didn't work, why of that? And what can I do?