If I were you, I would pull out the landscape fabric, use wet newspaper
for weed suppression, and follow the lazy gardeners guide to........ lazy
gardening.

The landscape fabric is already there. I installed it a couple years
ago. I would have to remove the landscape fabric and replace it with
newspaper if I followed your advice. That would be more work for me
not less.

Actually, I don't quite understand why we would use newspaper instead
of landscape fabric. The only benefit that I can see of using
newspapers is that they are free. But if we go through the trouble of
putting newspapers to block weeds, we "may" be better off going all
the way and install landscape fabric instead. The landscape fabric
should block weeds better than newspaper, right? What's the reason of
using newspaper instead of landscape fabrics anyway?

I am not trying to be negative. I just don't understand.

Jay Chan