Creeping fig will work in almost any area. It doesn’t even care about the soil quality. You should be fine. It does tend to grow up and over, so be sure to keep it trimmed if you’re sharing a wall with a neighbor and they don’t want it on their side. My neighbor and I liked the privacy-it got pretty tall over the 6’ height of the fence. We did need to trim it back at least a couple times a year, otherwise it would grow too thick. This was planted in hardly a sliver of dirt between between the edge of the driveway and the wall. And it’s always evergreen, but you’ll have to blow/rake the dead leaves weekly or so.

Over time, creeping fig becomes a behemoth with a thick trunk and quite far reaching branches. You'd need to keep it sheared the same as you would a hedge. (The branches can reach out 3' or 4' from the body.) Creeping fig still loses its leaves. It does it in secret, while the old leaves are covered up with new leaves ... but you will still see leaf debris.

Regarding the "ivy," that a plant's roots exist outside of one's property does not mean one cannot get rid of the plant's upper portions and keep them at bay. It's a matter of ongoing maintenance, probably requiring use of the same techniques a professional landscape maintenance service would use, which would likely be chemical.

not sure if I want to use chemicals as it might affect the other plants in the area.

would it be possible to cover up the ivy with creeping fig? Would it grow on top of it? The wall behind the pond fills with ivy around late spring and it looks pretty good but come fall the wall looks bare without it.

Usually, when two plants must face off and fight, one will dominate and win. Here, we can't begin to predict the outcome because we don't know what one of the plants are. Even if we did, there might not be anyone with enough experience to know the outcome under the same conditions you have. Sometimes, competing plants coexist. Either way, you will have leaves to clean up. Since with creeping fig you'll end up needing to trim off leafy branches that project outward from the wall, I think it will be a whole lot more cleaning up than just some fallen leaves. I think you're getting off light now.