What to do with aged bark path?

Good morning all.

About 5 years ago I put down some freshly chipped bark as a path surface and it has now rotted down into the most productive growing medium in my garden! A 2 week holiday in the summer and I’ll come back to a veritable jungle of plants!

I plan to lift it today and replace it but I’m unsure as to whether I should add it to the compost bin or not. As you can see, it’s pretty full of stray plants already and I’m sure it’s got seeds galore waiting to emerge, I’m worried that if I compost it I’ll just end up spreading it all everywhere!

Any suggestions of how I can use it productively?

Thanks all!

 

The easiest solution is to hoe it until all the weeds have been dislodged - assuming there aren't any perennial ones with deep roots.
Ideally, you'd pull them all out, but it depends on whether- a] you can be bothered, b] the size of the area, and c] how much time you have.
As you're keen to do it today, hand weeding is the best solution, but it may be abridge too far if you really can't be bothered!
Once that's done, you can use it as a mulch somewhere, or add it to your compost bin.

I've just done a small bed at the front of my garden that had bark put down many years ago. It took a while as I was removing a persistent geranium I don't like [therefore - a weed!] and the soil was in great condition. I'm replanting, so that's easier than renovating a path.

 

Thanks @fairygirl

I’m happy to pull the weeds, have done it many many times before

I’m more worried about all the seeds that are sitting in there. It mostly seems to be Red Veined Sorrel and Verbena that self seed profusely and I don’t really want to spread that around the garden.

 

I'd probably give it a good rake over and then just put a new layer of bark on, but then I would give it one application of weed killer next year, if you get new growth.
If it has a membrane you could remove it all down to that before applying the new bark.
As for any thing you remove, I doubt it will contain more weed seed than your general garden soil.

 

It also depends on how you use your compost. If it's turned in to the soil, most of the seeds would be buried, so not a problem. If you use it for mulching then, yes, that would spread the offenders around. It's a bit of a fallacy that the heat from composting kills off weed seeds.

 

@pete i do have a membrane down and the plan was to remove it down to there. I'd like to think you're right about the entire garden having add many seeds but this area somehow seems so prolific!

@noisette47 usually I would just dump the lot into the compost but that's really my worry, that it just won't kill of any seeds.