From 1985 to 1990 he was the Superintendent of the Green Animals Topiary Gardens in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Wasson worked as a California Certified Nursery Professional for the Berkeley Horticultural Nursery from 1991 to 1998. He was the American Co- Chief Editor for the North American edition of the 1997 botany publication Botanica. Wasson also wrote an internet column entitled "All Plants Considered" from 1997 to 2000. From 1998 to 2015, he was the curator and nursery manager of a teaching garden at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California.[1][2]
His professional interests include bold foliage plants, Dogwood, culinary ethnobotany, horticulture reference books, fall color, native plants, Nature Printing Society, Podophyllum, pruning, salvias, sassafras, and vegetables.[3]
Original Australian publication of 1997: Gordon Cheers (ed.): "Botanica. The Illustrated A-Z of over 10,000 Garden Plants and How to Cultivate Them". Random House Australia, Sydney (Australia) 1997, ISBN0-09-183806-1
Trees & shrubs: illustrated A-Z of over 8500 plants. Global Book Pub., Willoughby, New South Wales, Australia 2001, ISBN978-1-74048-007-9
Republication with different title: The complete encyclopedia of trees and shrubs. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, California 2003, ISBN978-1-59223-055-6
Richard G. Turner Jr., Ernie Wasson (Chief Editors): Botanica, The Illustrated A-Z of over 10,000 Garden Plants and How to Cultivate Them, Random House Australia, 1997[5][6]
Botanica : Encyclopédie de botanique et d'horticulture Plus de 10.000 plantes du monde entier, Editions Mengès (nouveau tirage 2006), ISBN2856204643[7] (French edition)
^Schmid, Rudolf (1998). "Reviewed work: Botanica: The Illustrated A--Z of over 10,000 Garden Plants and How to Cultivate Them, R. G. Turner, Jr., Ernie Wasson". Taxon. 47 (1): 221–222. doi:10.2307/1224071. JSTOR1224071.