You might try cutting the vine completely at ground level so it dies, and then wait a while to see if the dead vine is a little easier to remove than the living. The tendrils that hold the vine to the siding are strong, and even if you can pull the vine off, many of them will still cling. To remove them you'll have to use a paint scraper, sander, and effort. There is no easy way.

Another thing you might do is to section the vine so that you're only trying to remove a section at a time. You can do this by cutting it with clippers or carefully with a saw.

[This message has been edited by treebeard (edited May 06, 2003).]

I already cut the ivy from the root last fall. Even though the entire thing is dead, it is not any easier to remove. Removing the vine is kind of dangerous. Last year I was cutting it into sections and trying to pull the vine off. I fell off the ladder while yanking hard, but luckily I was not too high off the ground.

My husband wants to try to use bleach to remove the roots/tendrils. Would this really help to loosen it? The thing is already dead. I am not sure how this would help.

Bleach might only assist if you were trying to kill the thing. But as it's already dead, I doubt that it would do anything but clean the siding. Those tendrils that hold the vine to the siding can be very stubborn, but it seems you've already learned that. You might try taking a medium size putty knife and use it to work under the tendrils clinging to the house, in a small section, of course. It may be that you'll have to loosen the thing from the underside like that. It will be painstaking and laborious, but I can't think of an easy way. And last time I heard, magic still wasn't working....at least not for me.

(I can't believe the spelling mistakes. How could anyone read this?)

[This message has been edited by treebeard (edited May 14, 2003).]

We'll try that and see how that goes. My husband said that if the problem is too tough to fix, we should probably try to remove the wood and replace it (looks like most of the vine is on one cedar plank). I am not sure, though, if the wood would match the other planks.