Never use a pressure washing system to remove ivy suckers on vinyl siding.
How to remove vines from vinyl siding.
Unfortunately these vines are not harmless on a house with stucco or wood vinyl or fiber cement siding.
Here vines hold moisture against the wall promoting siding deterioration and they can even work their way through gaps in the window trim and grow into the home.
For wood siding use a paint scraper to remove the ivy shoots from the surface.
Removing the suckers is painstaking and often frustrating work but it is possible with the right techniques.
The best way to grow vines up a home is to grow them not directly on the home itself but on a support set about 6 8 inches out from the home s siding.
This heavy duty process can permanently damage the siding.
They pull off the vinyl with ease but leave this very sticky stuff everywhere.
How to keep vines from damaging siding or shingles.
We cut the roots and let the ivy die but we noticed all these little suction cups that held the ivy to the brick and wood siding.
Cut through the vines with the pruning shears.
Cut completely through the vines the entire length of the siding.
They also are wrapping themselves around the vinyl siding.
We didn t like it and we were told to cut the roots and let the ivy die and then just tear it down from the walls.
We recently bought a house that was half covered in ivy.
How to plant english ivy as a ground cover.
They can creep between masonry and stone joints under vinyl siding and into the mortar between bricks.
Start from one end of the wall and cut as you would hedges.
What s the best way to remove them.
If you think pulling the vines off your structure will do more harm than good first kill them by cutting them to 4 to 6 inches above the ground.
Examine what the vines are growing on before you start.
What you use should be based upon what vine you are growing.
Decided to try magic eraser and while it takes elbow grease it completely removed the sucker marks.
This is not a difficult task but it is time consuming.
A power washer took off some from the steel siding and didn t hurt the siding but i used a knife to remove it.
To remove vines from siding you must completely remove the vine.
I tried scraping them off and used a wire brush to remove them but didn t put a dent in the problem.
You can use trellises lattice metal grids or mesh strong wires or even string.
Sorry to say i found no easy way.
We had boston ivy growing on white vinyl siding and metal trim of garage the little black sucker marks were impossible to remove.
An ivy covered wall john from mississauga ontario writes.