well thats the down side of having membrane etc that you cant get new plants from seeds . surley you want to plant what you want . after a little while bio degradable things drop on top of your membrane and in your mulch and the odd bit of grass and weed will grow .got to be better than fighting weeds all the time .

Hi Lynne :o) I'm no expert by any means, but I really don't think you can expect seeds to germinate through weed fabric (and bark on top). I myself have gravel borders with weed fabric underneath, and I've never had any seeds germinating through that, and I wouldn't really expect it to as it's too deep. I haven't got any bark but I imagine someone else has and may be of help to you. But like I said, it'd be a tough job for any seeds to try and get through the weed fabric plus any covering you have over it.

Thank you for your responses. I think I might put membrane and bark down for a year or two to see if I can get rid of the weeds. I was sold some poor topsoil which has every single weed you could think of in it, as I found out last year! I really would like some of my plants to self seed though so I will just do it for a year.
Lynne x

Laying weed membrane and then covering it with bark will certainly cure your weed problem but it might take more than a year or two. You could always harvest your seeds and grow them on in pots until they are big enough to plant through the weed membrane.

Good luck with it and I'm sure you're doing the right thing to get rid of the "nasties" first Lol