This weekend was full of discoveries involving ivy and stucco and removing the former from the later. Summarizing them we have:

  1. Don't. Keep them away from one another. If you have a stucco home and your neighbor plants ivy secretly poison it.
  2. If there is ivy on your stucco, just leave it there. Removing it is not worth the pain.
  3. If you do remove the ivy, remove it completely. If you pull it off and plan on getting the residual debris later, you're going to find it's dried to a state where it can no longer be pulled off in strands like it can be when green.
  4. If you've let residual ivy dry to the point where it's brittle, plan on a day full of power washers, long handled brushes, and ladders. Try to drink a lot. Expect to repaint.