Since I work full time, I have to squeeze in my garden chores in the evenings and on weekends. However, I usually spend my first few hours on sunny weekend mornings hanging out on our patio with our 3 dogs, and just enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of the garden. Every day I walk around the yard and look at the plants, see what's blooming, what's growing, and deadheading/weeding as needed. That is my therapy each day to decompress from work and relax. My hubby and I often eat dinner or have happy hour outside on the gazebo and we are surrounded by views of the garden, birds, butterflies, and blue sky, so that is also relaxing. Generally, once the spring chores are done (such as planting of new stuff, removing dead branches/leaves, applying compost or mulch), there is not too much major work to be done. So, I consider myself as having an equal mix of "work" time and "relax/reflect" time in the garden, and that suits me just fine.

For the past couple of years or so, I have started doing a lot more relaxing in the garden. Before I was constantly doing some sort of work, and felt guitly if I did not get even some small something accomplished. I took very little time to just sit down and enjoy the fruits of my labor. Granted, there is generally a good deal more to do when a garden is still young and its gardener still a newbie.
Now I try to do just a little bit every day. Sometimes it is just weeding a little area of the garden, moving a plant, or giving a shrub a little pruning. In the end it usually all gets done, and I didn't have to worry about it, as I did before.

Over the years I have also tried to make my garden as self-reliant as possible so as to reduce the work I need to do. I pack the plants as close together as I can to reduce the amount of weeds, and have tossed out many of the plants that are too fussy or don't do well. I still have to water ever day (in the warm seasons), but I have reduced the maintainance a good deal. Now I can sit out in the yard with a glass of iced tea and a book and just enjoy the garden, guilt free!
CMK

I have two crazy weeks every April where I try to plant, plant, plant and weed, weed, weed before it gets too hot. Then, it's much more relaxed the rest of the year until fall when I do cleanup, winterizing and fall planting for a few weeks.

We spend a lot of time walking through our garden; sitting on the waterfall garden patio (with view of fragrance and butterfly garden); sitting on the front porch (cottage garden); sitting on the screened porch (view of woods). In winter, we sit inside the house in the garden room by the fireplace with views of both the cottage garden and waterfall garden.

Cameron

CMK said a mouth full !! "Granted, there is generally a good deal more to do when a garden is still young and its gardener still a newbie."

And then Cameron chimed in also right on the button I edited a little LOL!! "We spend a lot of time walking through our garden; sitting at the poolside garden patio (with view of fragrance and butterfly garden); sitting on the front porch ( lawn and azaleas ); sitting on the back little play house porch.Sitting on the brick patio/ purple back garden. In winter, we sit inside the house in the sun room with the fireplace in the kitchen going and views of the back garden or in the dining room w/ that fireplace and the view of the pool garden.

I never realized how many places we have to sit. DH says we have more places than butts LOL. c

Someone told me the same thing. "You sure have alot of places to sit". Well, there's a chair or bench for every vista! ha.

April and May are my busiest months, too; after that it's mostly maintenance.

I thought this was going to be about your "day off" from work being all about gardening work! That's my situation, since I work 40 - 50 hrs / week + 1hr commute away. But I love it! Weeding, digging, planting all day Sat and Sun is fun!

I'm also just like 3dogsmom. Every day the first thing I do when I get home from the office (that doesn't even have a window, ugh nyc) the 1st thing I do is let my dog out and have a walk around the garden to see how all my babies are growing. Talk about unwinding and relaxing. :-)

My husband and I also eat dinner out there on nice weekdays, and brunch/dinner on the weekend. Just this past weekend I had less (other)work to do than usual, so in-between digging a new calendula bed and laying out the soaker hose, I spent around 2 -3 hours just sitting there watching the plants grow, listening to the birds chirp and windchimes chime. It was awesome!!

Not a regular one, because it's all fun for me.
BUT, I keep thinking that I should probably figure out a way to make it less work, maybe by stifling the impulse to add more stuff.

No real days off, unless it's -15C or more, raining too hard, or too hot. The last 2 not so much!!! I try to take my tea out with me every morning to do a 'garden tour' - very pleasurable, and no work, unless I see an easy weed to pull. When I get home, I do another tour, this time to get a better 'ken' of where everything is, and possibly where it should be. This is when I'll do several things in the garden before dinner. Saturday, if I have good weather, I go hard at it!!! lol. Which tends to mean I'm a little slower on Sunday, however, I believe that time in my my Garden is time with a Greater Being(insert your own definition here). I commune with the nature around me, and never has it failed to awe. Sorry, I didn't mean to make this metaphysical...so, the short answer is no, no day off!!

Nancy.

I'm still in the major new garden work, so it does seem like I rarely get to sit and enjoy it. It doesn't help that the last couple of summers have been so wet, the mosquitoes make it nasty out there after July.

I do make a point of walking around the garden at lunch (if I can go home for lunch) or right after I get home. But, I rarely get to sit and read outside with a cup of coffee or tea. Of course, being a mom and having a job might have something to do with that, too. ;)

I have decided that any day I want, can be my 'day off'! It has taken me a long time to figure that out. DH keeps telling me to pace myself; that I don't have to get it all done in one day. That being said, I don't do much sitting in the garden..........I keep seeing something I should do.

Well ..... my day off is the day I garden, or wash, or clean, or mark books, or nag offspring about homework or sort out ancient parents .... Like aubade gardening IS the day off!

Ditto to what Flora and Aubade said.

I do take a stroll every morning and every night to see what's new. So much can happen in a garden in one day.

I take hours, not days. Working full time away from home has changed the times I work in the yard, but I still manage to have a cup of coffee or a glass of tea out there most days. It's my place to watch the world.