In another forum post this was posted and I thought this was something important enough I wanted to be able to point back to.
Stoot Barfield says here: "Toksyuryel, re "What is the purpose of the "leisure activity" message when gardening? The only time I ever get it when the game is lagging. Is it meant to punish us for experiencing lag?"
The purpose is to let you know that the client has not yet heard back from the server regarding your previous action and can't proceed to the next one until it does (because the garden or plot or you or your tool or one of many other things might have changed state in the meantime). It is not meant to punish you. The alternatives are for it to just silently fail (which I guarantee you would find more frustrating) or display some other message.
(This is a rare case where "lag" (slow syncing between client and server) is actually the cause of the problem — usually the problem is that Glitch/Flash/your browser are colluding to melt your CPU and it just can't keep up displaying everything on screen at the same time, regardless of the client-server latency.)
Gardening performance will improve (I hope!). But, automation is the future for high level gardeners. The upcoming skills Master Gardener and Potionmaking III will make your suffering a thing of the past. "
Please note the bolded portion. Yeah!!!!!!