The ivy will make marks on the stone. It sticks to walls with "holdfasts" and they are impossible to remove completely. You will need to keep the ivy in bounds regularly, especially in the spring and fall. It won't be a once a year job after the ivy covers the area you want it to. I'd probably aim for a spring planting, but fall will be fine. The ivy will sit for a year, grow a bit the second year and take off from the third year on. And it will head out horizontally as well, so that will need to be watched.

It will be some work, but I don't know of any vine that isn't. Well, clematis and annual vines are easy, but they won't climb without a trellis.

I have got a wall about 30 yards long and 8 feet high covered in English ivy and 4 walls about 15 yards long and 2 feet high.

The only time of year when I don't have to prune my English ivy is from late November to early April. It will quickly get away from you otherwise.

It will damage brick masonry but it take a good while to do serious damage--15 years or more.

It will take the whole wall over.

The sun won't kill it.

It is subject to powdery mildew which doesn't seem to kill mine. It is also subject to rust,which will kill some of it, enough to make swatches of it unsightly for a while in mid-summer. That problem seem to take care of itself once colder weather arrives.

I tried spraying Bayer fungicide on it (which works great on blackspot on roses) but that did not take care of the rust. For what it is worth the Bayer also failed to remedy the rust on a couple of dogwood trees.

It is, however, great on the roses!

The ivy will collect a lot of pollen, dust, etc. in its leaves and at certain times of the year pruning it can be irritating.

Just another thought... I think ivy is pretty, but there are any number of mature ivy plants in various trees in my neighborhood. I'm forever digging ivy out of my flower beds due to seed distribution.

It is fairly easy to keep up with, but I'd rather not have to deal with it.

A house near me used to have ivy trained up over the front door in a sort of giant wreath, which was pretty. It was recently removed and the damage to the bricks (especially the mortar) is very evident. I've no idea how long the ivy was there, certainly the past 10 years or so, probably longer for that amount of plant.