IMO you work harder in blue collar but its less stress because people don't expect you to hustle to meet a deadline.. I was also a landscaper for a while. Labor is labor in that sort of job, it marches at an expected rate and is dependent on how many hands are working. You often cannot just work for longer, either, if you are bound by the constraints of daylight, or having to clear out of the area by a certain time due to noise perhaps. There is also no way to weed, mow, or lay sod faster than you are already doing it. The deadlines end up moving to fit the realities of the speed of labor against the realities, rather than what happens in white collar work where labor being expected to meet self imposed rigid deadlines, which leads to burnout and poor quality work, and still missing deadlines.