When you buy a walk-behind lawnmower, you benefit from safety standards and regulations from two sources: The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

Maintaining quality turfgrass sometimes requires that lawn waste be picked up. This trash can include leaves, pine needles and grass clippings as well as twigs, seed pods from trees and pine cones.

One of the factors that most affects both the capability of a lawn/garden tractor, and the price, is the engine.

You will save money in the short run at discount stores and mass merchandisers. You will pay more but get better quality equipment and service with dedicated lawn and garden dealers or farm equipment dealers.

Mid-mount rotary mower decks are common on lawn tractors, garden tractors, subcompact tractors and smaller compact utility tractors. There are two ways that these decks can be mounted, and the mounting method affects adjustment and operation.

A sharp mower blade produces a prettier cut with less stress on the turf plant. Sharpening a reel mower blade assembly is difficult and best left to a professional, but sharpening a common rotary mower blade is not a big problem.

Varying your mowing pattern can cause you to spend a little more time mowing, but the result will be a greatly improved appearance in your turfgrass.

Finishing (or grooming) mowers typically have (two or) three blades and are designed for quality mowing of turfgrass. They have multiple gage wheels and rollers that allow a relatively low cutting height with minimal scalping.

Riding mowers, lawn tractors, lawn and garden tractors, and garden tractors are covered by several safety standards that are designed to protect you, the operator.

Do you get what you pay for when buying a mowing tractor? There is certainly a wide range of prices; in fact, you can easily pay twice as much for a lawn tractor at a major farm equipment dealer as you would pay for a lawn tractor with the same horsepower and mowing width at a discount store. What do you get for the additional money?