You can't really use anything like landscape fabric or black plastic in the row/patch, because the new canes come up at random all over the place. The only real use for a barrier mulch in raspberries is to prevent unwanted canes from coming up between rows/blocks or to create a cane free containment zone between a row/patch and a lawn, IMHO. What I do that works quite well is dump a pretty thick layer of oak leaves in between the canes when dormant, either late fall or (usually) very early spring. I try to put about 6-8 inches. By the time the new canes are coming up in May, the leaves have settled enough that the new canes generally make it through, although I do end up having to rescue a small percentage of them, maybe 10%, each year -- they show up as mounds of leaves, and I know there is a new cane under there fighting to get out. I also have used some PREEN at times to prevent germination of certain weed seeds that got going in my patches due to my own stupidity at bringing them in in the first place -- garlic mustard and peppercress -- this also helps a lot for these types of weeds, especially in combination with the oak leaves to smother the ones the PREEN didn't get the season before. Overall, I think if you maintain a healthy patch, there aren't too many weed problems. They tend to be thick enough to shade out most of the weeds that are common to gardens and disturbed ground.

I don't have FL, but I have his sport-child FESTIVAL FANFARE, and it does the same thing!! Shoots waaay out with these long flailing octopus canes all over the place. I do occasionally chop it back pretty low and it seems to tame it for awhile, but I generally just let it go. It's near a fence, and I intended to train it along the fence, but I haven't ever gotten to that point yet. It just kinda does its thing. It even has a section that reverted back to FRED.

I have ties on the corners of my duvet, but no loops on the comforter, so I just bunch up the corner of the comforter a little and tie around the corner. You can do the same just by sewing shoestrings or the like to all four corners. Make sure you choose a tie that you can easily undo and redo many times, that's why I like the idea of using a shoestring. Sewing loops onto the comforter would be more work, but if you're so inclined I say go for it.

Thanks everyone for your advice! I went to the library yesterday and found a fairly good book on Mesembs/Succulents indicating where certain species live, when they get rainfall/fog and how much. The major difference is their growing season- summer or winter. The other thing is growers in CA are growing their lithops completely different than growers in the UK/N Europe (for obvious reasons). My understanding is that growers in CA can mimic their natural growing environment, due to fantastic light year round and fairly warm temps. With the UK/N. European growers many seem to push for winter dormancy regardless due to cooler temps and lack of light. There is no clear cut answer, which complicates it further :/. Will have to spend a bit more time doing research on the types Im interested in growing and seeing how I can get them to do well in my environment.