Hah.

I am in the middle of trimming the english ivy on a 50 foot long 12+ foot high chain link fence at the back of my property. It's a three or four day ordeal, and not without some danger since I have to get on a ladder to get at the upper six+ feet. Then comes the shredding. The one plus is that english ivy seems very nutrient rich and all by itself can make for a quite hot compost pile, if you keep it well watered. A big minus for me is that I'm allergic to the ivy dust so I have to wear a full face respirator to keep it out of my eyes and airway.

Do not, I repeat, do not try to cover that fence with English Ivy. You'll regret it.

The stuff here is very well entrenched and is on a shared fence. I can't even get the other landowner to trim their side of the thing (it's a condominium complex and they say it's too high to trim... Hmmm I'm no spring chicken but I manage to do it on my side!). I wouldn't mind eradicating it but it would take an act of God to get the other neighbor to cooperate. I've removed it from nearly all the interior fencing (the previous owner went nuts with the fences and ivy 30 years ago), and it's not easy to kill or dig up.

Adding to the misery - the robins love the ripe berries and then they crap them out all over the place, so I get to rip out ivy sprouts all year to keep it from taking over the entire property. They even appear in potted plants, it's that pernicious.

As for what else you could use... well... plastic doesn't need trimming ;-). Alternatively you could plant some sort of hedge before the fence. Out here pittosporum does well. Might not survive an Ohio winter, though. I suppose there's always something like privet (but it's invasive, too).

There also may be less aggressive/invasive types of ivy that would be evergreen, suggest you search for those that would work in your climate zone.