I have this slope in my backyard.

I planted some shrubs and groundcover to make it look nice and to reinforce the hill.

I hope that my thyme will eventually trail over my rocks.

This area though gets ALOT of weeds. It's very unmanageable and weeds are growing in between my groundcover.

So my solution is to put the black weed paper down but I have a few questions.

1. I have to at times go up there to cut down the bushes once they start really growing - will I totally be ripping the paper by stepping up there?

2. Do I need to plant some groundcover at the top because the top row of groundcover isn't going to grow upwards?

3. I have this one groundcover that seems it may over power my thyme (picture 3) - should I pull these out and just replace with more thyme so they just fuse together?

4. Is the black paper the best solution for my weed control?

5. Weeds from my neighbor behind me is creeping under my fence! any solutions there? That neighbor won't get rid of them.

Here is a link to the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/lovellal/BackYard

Please any advice would be awesome!