Why isn't there a numerical experience bar for gardening? There is one for standard experience in the character section but I have yet to locate one for Gardening.
There isn't one. The bar at the top of the screen when you go into gardening mode is the only indication of experience gained/achieved. Each 'block' in the bar represents a level of gardening. As far as I can tell, the exp required for the next level more or less doubles with each level. So, as you can guess, going from rank 9 to 10 takes quite a bit of gardening.