Instead of purchasing expensive landscape cloth, herbicides or spending hours on your knees pulling weeds, good old fashion newspaper is a great substitute to control unsightly weeds. Use several sheets of newspaper as you would landscape cloth. Cover the paper with soil, mulch or landscape stones. It allows moisture into the soil and blocks most weeds for at least 3 years. The thicker the layer of paper the longer it will last. Eventually the newspaper composts into the soil. Also, run old newspaper through your paper shredder and add it to your compost pile. It will turn to compost within a few weeks.