Driving around Newton, you are bound to see landscaping and construction trucks emblazoned with distinctive Italian names.

They are such a fixture that it might seem they’ve always been here. But behind these familiar fleets lies a rich history of immigration, hard work and family legacy. 

Lamacchia crew working on a driveway in Newton Corner. Photo by Richard Primack

To find the stories behind these local companies, I sat down recently with four company owners: Joe Lamacchia from Lamacchia Landscape Construction, John Capello from Ieraci Landscaping, Peter DiClemente from Peter DiClemente Gardening, and David Sementelli from D&S Landscaping. 

Each company operates primarily in Newton and all four owners are products of the Newton school system. The businesses’ founders immigrated here from Italy and often did all the work themselves. Today the companies employ around 20 workers each, most from Central America, representing a new generation of workers shaping the city’s landscapes. 

Early history 

Pierno DiClemente immigrated to the U.S. in the 1930s from the mountainous Abruzzo region of Italy. He first worked as a stone mason but began doing gardening work for homes in Chestnut Hill. He walked daily from his self-built Thompsonville home with his wheelbarrow and tools. 

Peter DiClemente and his father’s old truck. Photo by Richard Primack

His son Domenic picked up the work, adding a dump truck to the simple hand tools. When grandson Peter took over the business in 1990, he began changing to electric and gas-powered tools and hiring more workers. As he says, “I was trying to find a better balance between being efficient and still keeping up the quality of the service.”  

Like the DiClementes, the Ieraci family’s local legacy also grew from humble, labor-intensive beginnings. John Capello’s great-grandfather, Antonio Ieraci, arrived from Calabria around 1935, but could not speak English, which limited the kinds of work he could do.

Landscape construction and more

Over time, these companies expanded into landscape construction, or hardscape, building walls, walkways, patios, pools and driveways, and even housing knockdowns and excavation.

Ieraci Landscaping doing hardscape work in Newton Centre. Photo by Richard Primack

Ieraci Landscaping runs four full-time crews split between lawns and landscape construction. They also do considerable work for the City of Newton on water and sewer lines. 

D&S Landscaping is known for its ability to replace water and sewer lines for homeowners and takes special pride in restoring the gardens back to their original condition after the work is done. 

Lamacchia, for its part, offers a wide range of hardscape services and is known for abundant advertising and emphasis on customer satisfaction. 

Local contributions

The owners of all four companies take pride in having long-term relationships with customers. Peter DiClemente still provides landscaping services to some of the same properties, and sometimes even the same families, as his grandfather.

D&S Landscaping at a Newton site. Photo by Richard Primack

 These companies often give back to the city. 

Sementelli has provided landscape services to Lasell University for 40 years. Each year the company funds a criminal justice scholarship at Lasell. It maintains a garden at Lasell Village and provides gifts of potted plants to Lasell employees. 

Lamacchia makes a financial contribution to the annual St. Mary of Carmen Festival in Nonantum and provides free landscaping to the Boys & Girls Club. 

Today’s challenges

The greatest challenge is finding workers. People growing up in Newton and the surrounding communities today are generally not used to the hard physical work of landscaping. The owners now hire primarily Central Americans, especially Guatemalans. 

“In recent years, we have had to take extra care vetting these workers to make sure that they can be legally hired,” Joe Lamacchia says, “and then we have to offer higher wages to keep them.” 

As a result, the cost of labor has increased by 40 percent over the past five years. “We try to create a good work environment with training and better wages,” DiClemente says.

Recent tree removal and leaf blower regulations add costs, as electric blowers are quieter but take more time. John Capello reports that there are fewer places to dump yard waste and to buy wholesale soil and other supplies.

There is now more competition for landscaping work in Newton, from both new smaller companies and larger companies, often with national affiliations, based outside Newton.  

The future of landscaping

The long-term future of these companies is unclear, as the children of the owners will probably not go into the landscaping business. 

One likely scenario is for an energetic employee to make the leap from foreman to partner to owner. This is already happening at Peter DiClemente Gardening, where Henry Morales, a new U.S. citizen who arrived from Guatemala with nothing more than ambition, has become a partner in the company.  

Let’s hope these long-time local companies find ways to stick around for the coming decades and carry on their Newton legacy. 

Richard B. Primack is a lifelong resident of Newton and plant ecology professor at Boston University. He can be reached at: primack@bu.edu