When I had the back yard entirely done they lined around the house with that heavy fabric and 1-2" rock. They said I could 'easily' just pull back the rock and cut the fabric to plant. Boy was that a fib. Easily!! NOT. It about killed me and I finally just raked (still hard work) the rock out onto poly then pulled up the fabric entirely where I wanted to plant. It was successful in keeping the weeds almost entirely out although I had laid poppy stems there to let them dry and seeds escaped. I had crops of poppies right in the gravel.
I think I would prefer a mix of fractured stones, not river rock, and soil, more or less 50/50 depending on the type of plant to go there.
