Michael Wasser Associates

Michael Wasser Associates is a landscape architecture practice at 1569 Centre Street in Boston, and the work it posts is whole-property design rather than yard maintenance: eight projects on Houzz, and a stated reach the firm describes as New England and Cape Cod, the Eastern Seaboard and the Midwest. The written history is short and old. Two reviews, both from 2013, average 4.5 on Houzz. The fuller of them, posted in July 2013, described a front-and-back-yard project that took in a deck, patio, dog run, wooden fence enclosure, driveway, walkways, retaining walls and several gardens, and singled out attention to water runoff and grade — the unglamorous part of a landscape build that decides whether the rest lasts. That homeowner also credited him with managing subcontractors and calming a worried neighbour, and said the house went on the Belmont Garden Club Garden Tour in 2010. The August 2013 review is a plain scope list — patio, two walls, a kitchen garden, walkways, stone and plant selection, and a reoriented driveway — with no verdict attached. The profile also lists three design awards, from 2005 through 2007, and a licence number, 1191. That licence figure is what the Houzz page states rather than something confirmed against a registry, so ask him for it directly. This reads as the right call for a homeowner planning a designed landscape — grading, hardscape, planting and the coordination of the trades who build it — rather than a crew for routine yard work. Before hiring, ask for recent projects and references: everything written about this firm by its clients dates to 2013.