A ride on mower is a tremendous labour saving device, and can take a lot of hard work out of the business of maintaining a beautiful ornamental lawn. However, these machines are useful for far more than simply keeping your grass trimmed. With a range of towable attachments and accessories available for purchase and hire, your mower can be used to fulfil a variety of functions to keep your grass green and healthy year round.

Rollers

These devices bear a passing resemblance to the concrete and cast iron monstrosities of years gone by, but are much more modern and versatile. Modern towable rollers are hollow, and are designed to be filled with water or sand to add weight -- as such, they are fully adjustable to different soil conditions, ensuring you can dress and firm the topsoil of your lawn without damaging delicate ornamental grasses or excessively compacting the soil.

Spreaders

These devices are extremely versatile, and can perform a variety of functions when towed behind your mower:

• Spreading grass seed to establish new lawns or renew damaged or thinning ones
• Spreading fertilisers, pesticides and weedkillers to encourage healthy grass growth
• Spreading sharp sand or grit to aerate soil and promote drainage
• Top dressing with soil or organic materials to smooth lawns and protect them during winter

These devices can be quite heavy when fully laden, so choose a spreader with wide, inflatable tyres to minimise ruts and divots. Some spreaders also come with adjustable nozzles, allowing you to control the angle of spread; very useful when dealing with potentially harmful chemicals such as insecticides.

Scarifiers

These intimidating-looking contraptions are towed behind your mower, where the rows of jagged metal teeth pierce the soil periodically as they move. While it may look like a savage process, it creates valuable channels in the topsoil improve your lawn's water drainage properties.  Piercing the soil also allows water and fertilisers to penetrate soil more deeply, and the sharp vertical blades allow scarifiers to remove moss clumps, creeping weeds and other unwanted features marring your lawn. Choose a scarifier made from robust materials that will not damage or corrode easily, and look for models that can be easily weighted for use on heavy or excessively dry ground.

Moss rakes

Essentially large, specialised rakes designed for towing, these rakes are fitted with tough, widely spaced tines that catch and disrupt thick moss and lichen growth without damaging grass leaves. They are also useful for removing dead roots, large leafy weeds and leftover grass clippings, and can be particularly useful for gathering leaf litter quickly in autumn. Choose a model with soft tyres and adjustable tine heights if possible.

If you're checking out Husqvarna lawn mowers for the first time or want to upgrade your own mower, keep these features in mind.