hubby so far like his 54 inch cut the best one with the nice deck Bought it in 2012. But want Hubby to buy a backup...
it was over 3000 new. would hae peferred the smaller cut, but it had to be special ordered. wanted that one so it could fit in our utility trailer.....
also bought and orded the grass catcher mostly to mulch and capture leaves so can compost etc...

I to am looking for a garden tractor to do a hill and some rough terrain about 5 acres. Can spend about $5,000. Not looking at ZTR as I want to add snow plow on front later on. Was looking for 4WD but not much out there (In my $$ range).

lcb65, Look for a JD 425 or 445 you can't go wrong with these machines for what you want.
lisa, You should be able to find a JD 445 or a 455 for that price, They will be an older machine but their built tough, You could get lucky and find the newer X4 series for that our a X5 series.

Buy a used 425/445 and hope it doesn't have the plastic cam gear that grenades sooner or later. The later models that had the steel cam gear they should have had in the first place bring premium prices.

Take a test drive on a JD X500 with 48" deck. Current promo is $500 off. Real ground engaging GT with diff lock, a great engine, and a 4 year warranty plus any attachments you buy on the same invoice as the tractor get grandfathered into the tractor's 4 year warranty instead of just the one year warranty for attachments.