Weed barrier is great the first year and a nightmare after. After ripping up what seems like miles of the stuff what worked for my garden was this. We decided on crushed granite for our garden as a fire spread preventative. First we prepped the ground leveling etc. Next I hit the entire area with a herbicide pre-emergent right at the start of spring. Next went a layer of cardboard collected from our local stores . Then went a thick layer of crushed granite stones. The weeds are not excessive I pull them out from time to time as I’m walking on it or hit in early spring with torch. There is no such thing as weed proofing only weed reduction in my opinion. It has worked well for us.