'Yard Crashers' garden makeover show hits Tampa

About 300 people showed up at the Lowe's on South Dale Mabry Highway, hoping for a backyard makeover, courtesy of the DIY Network's "Yard Crashers."

Show producers spent all day interviewing people about their dream projects, hearing their stories, reviewing plans and photos.

And now ... we have our winner.

Tom and Brooke Iarossi want a nice, relaxing backyard -- the kind of place where they can entertain and their daughter can play.

What they've got is a mess. The yard is filled with poop from their dogs - Norman the Labrador retriever and Frankenstein the pug. Their grass is patchy, and they have a scary tin shed that needs to disappear.

"This yard badly needs help," Brooke Iarossi said Sunday. "We've been here almost five years, and we've neglected our backyard that long."

Help is coming.

The Iarossis were among those who came to audition for a backyard makeover, paid for by the show. They brought sketched plans, photos and video of their yards, hoping to be selected.

The Iarossis got to the store at 8 a.m. with a video of their yard. They found out they had won about 6 p.m.

This evening, a crew from the show arrived at the couple's home on Ballast Point Boulevard. Show host Ahmed Hassan chatted with them to get an idea of what they wanted, such as a swing for Isabella, their 9-month-old girl.

The two-day landscaping blitz begins Wednesday. By the time the project is complete, upwards of $35,000 will be spent on improvements.

The program will air in July.

Producers hunted all day for the right yard - one that offered a blank slate and striking before and after images. The show seeks out personable, energetic people with terrible yards and tries its best to help.

"We need yards that are awful," said Ross Babbit, director of programming for DIY Network. "And this one is awful."

This is the first time the program has been in Tampa. The network picked the city because it's warm in March; plus DIY and "Yard Crashers" have a solid fan base here.

The event at Lowe's represented a change for the program, Babbit said.

Normally, Hassan lurks in a home improvement store, waiting to ambush a shopper and convince the homeowner to take him home for an intense two days of work aimed at transforming a sorry yard into a showpiece.

"It's like winning a landscape lottery," Babbit said.

The transformation budgets usually start about $20,000, he said. The show pays for whatever might be needed - everything from landscaping to patios or fencing.

As the program became more popular, producers noticed in the past year or so that Hassan was being recognized and losing the ambush character of the show.

"We decided to do a reverse ambush," Babbit said.

Brooke Iarossi, 29, who works in medical sales, said she has high hopes for her new yard. It's finally going to look good, she said.

"This is so exciting," Iarossi said. "I got teary eyed when we heard we'd won. We've wanted to work on our yard for so long. This is amazing."

Hassan said looks forward to getting to work.

"This yard is right in line with what I'm used to ripping out and totally redoing," he said. "There's really not much that's salvageable here."