Garden Tractor Buyer's Guide

It's just satisfying to grade a driveway, renovate a lawn or haul firewood to its stack.

You can use any basic machine for small jobs, but serious lawn work calls for beefy equipment. These machines are known as garden tractors.

Heavier, more powerful (and, yes, more expensive) than their lawn tractor cousins, these tractors are built to tackle the toughest yard maintenance tasks.

Attachment Capability
Both garden and lawn tractors can pull a cart or a sprayer around your yard. But you’ll need the extra strength and power of a garden tractor if you want to use heavy-duty, ground engaging attachments like a tiller, a disc cultivator, a dozer blade or a snow thrower. Garden tractors have more power and more options.


Heavy-Duty Design
Frames and axles can tell you a lot about a tractor. Lawn tractors front axles are generally formed from steel and welded.

Garden tractors have forged or cast iron axles, which are stronger and a good indicator of overall quality level.


Engine
How much horsepower is enough? All garden tractors will come standard with an Overhead Valve (OHV) engine and twin cylinder design, which is the best combination for mower performance.

A higher horsepower engine provides improved performance for heavy-duty attachments like tillers, plows and grading blades.