Use Kraft Paper to Prevent Weeds in Flower Bed

I've tried the newspaper, mulch, digging by hand; all in vain. After building our house, I had a roll of leftover brown paper like they use to protect your floors while building. I used this on one of my flower beds as an experiment. I used the traditional hand weed pulling, newspaper, mulch method on the rest of them. After three years, the bed with the brown paper stays nearly weed free, while the other beds have continued to be heavily infested from weeds after just two months!

I am currently looking out the window at one of my beds totally consumed with grass and weeds, after spending two days pulling weeds and mulching just two months ago! Today, I am doing another experiment. I am going to lay the brown, thick kraft paper over the entire bed, while cutting it around the shrubs and plants, then covering that with 4 inches of pine needles. Hopefully, this will smother the weeds and grass without having to pull them all by hand. I'll let you all know how it works!