Thomas Wirth Associates

Thomas Wirth founded Thomas Wirth Associates in Sherborn in 1982, and it is still a family business — his son Wesley joined in 1996 and, the company says, now heads the Sherborn office. A 2018 Press Herald piece described the firm as a landscape architecture and design practice working out of both Sherborn and Phippsburg, Maine; the company dates that Maine branch to 2012. The work runs past private backyards: alongside residential clients, the firm says it designs for institutional and public-space projects. In a 2011 magazine article, Wesley Wirth was described taking charge of a house's surroundings on the coast — restoring portions of the bank by pulling out invasive plants and replacing them with native species. If you are planning a whole property — grades, plantings, the built parts of a garden — this is that kind of practice, with more than four decades of projects behind it. Ask how design fees and drawings are billed, which of the two offices would carry your project, and confirm insurance and licensing for whichever contractor builds the plan.