persephone wrote:

Comes my gardener and says that this doesn't work. Weeds come
up anyway, and are harder to pull out because stuck in the cloth.

Your gardener is right. A few years down the road, you'll have a worse
time removing grass or weeds. They become hopelessly entangled, and
you'll need a really sharp knife, or a lot of muscle to remove the mess.

Last summer my daughter moved into a home where the grass was starting
to grow into the flower bed. You couldn't tell the previous owners had
used the fabric in the bed. I pulled out my trusty shovel from the back
of the truck, and tried to edge it. A few days later, with the help of
my grown son, we were able to edge the small flower bed, after removing
most of the rose bushes and plants from the tangled mess.

Good Luck!