How to Prepare Your Mini Pond for Winter

If your pond is a bit larger, some people add fish, like goldfish for instance. These must always be removed for winter, as these ponds are too shallow for them to overwinter safely.

But let's stick to the mini pond. These are typically created using commercially available hard shells that come in various shapes and sizes. They are sometimes deep enough to plant aquatic plants, but they may also be too shallow for those plants to overwinter successfully.

Especially in genuinely cold winters, like those we experience in the German low mountain ranges, the pond will freeze solid. This means not just an ice sheet forming, but the entire body of water turning into a solid block of ice. Some plants cannot withstand this.

Therefore, you should simply place them in their pots or containers into a bucket or tub of water and bring them into the basement. Here, they'll have their usual environment, but frost-free. In spring, simply place them back into the pond, making sure to trim off any rotted plant parts.

If you make sure to buy winter-hardy plants from the start, you can leave them in the pond throughout the cold season. However, the pond must not be emptied then. In the spring, you should bail out and clean the pond before refilling it with fresh water.

Winterizing ponds that are "only" lined with foil is more challenging. These must remain full of water and stand over the winter. These too are emptied and cleaned in the spring, if possible.