What Are the Differences Between Ride-On Mowers and Garden Tractors?

When you have a larger garden or piece of land to maintain, you need a highly effective grass cutting solution. Ride-on lawn mowers (also known as front mowers) and garden tractors are both designed for taking care of extensive grassy areas. However, they do feature some key differences, which we'll explain below so you can choose the best machine to suit your needs.

Ride-On Front Mowers

As the name may suggest, ride-on front mowers have a front-mounted cutting deck, which is particularly useful when the land that you need to maintain has a lot of obstacles. The position and low height of the cutting deck on ride-on lawn mowers makes it easy to mow the grass underneath benches and tables, bushes, playground equipment and other low objects compared to a traditional manual lawn mower. Also, the high, central seat position offers the operator a clear view of the riders' work area along with exceptional stability due to its low centre of gravity.

Selected models of Husqvarna ride-on mowers, such as the P500 Series, feature all-wheel drive (AWD) and are therefore a popular choice for commercial and professional use in public parks and gardens. But, they are just as practical for maintaining large domestic gardens and private land. As the wheels on our ride-on lawn mowers can swing underneath the machine, they also have outstanding steering and maneuverability, with an exceptionally small turning circle that can easily cut around the narrowest trees, posts, ponds and waste bins.

All of our ride-on lawn mowers also feature our exclusive Husqvarna mulching technology, BioClip®, which actually helps to improve the condition of the lawn as it cuts. BioClip® works by cutting the grass and throwing it up into the cutting deck, so that the grass can fall onto the blades a second time. This cuts the grass clippings so small that they break down and return their nutrients to the soil, acting as a natural fertiliser.

Garden Tractors

If a versatile garden maintenance machine is what you're looking for, Husqvarna garden tractors could be the ideal solution. As well as cutting grass, our domestic tractors can be used for several other purposes including; sweeping leaves, moving snow, spreading fertiliser, or even as a trailer, thanks to the wide range of attachments available for Husqvarna’s garden tractors.

A key difference between a tractor and a ride-on mower is the position of the cutting blades, which on garden tractors are located at the centre of the machine. This makes them very effective for cutting large gardens or areas of open land and around wider objects like trees and bushes. A downside compared to ride-on mowers is that they are unable to cut underneath low objects such as benches, as the cutting deck cannot reach. This also creates a larger turning circle than that of a rider.

However, Husqvarna garden tractors are equipped with unique U-Cut steering technology. This reduces its turning circle dramatically and allows unprecedented tight turning and optimised manoeuvrability compared to other garden tractors on the market.

With Husqvarna garden tractors you also have the choice of three cutting systems: collecting, BioClip mulching, or side ejection. These options allow you to deal with grass clippings in the way to match your preferences. So with Husqvarna you can choose a garden tractor that's perfectly suited to your garden maintenance needs, no matter how broad they may be.