Garden Ops is host based, so you're trying to connect directly to each other.
Issues like these are usually a connection issue between the two people; but I'm not a networking expert and not sure how this would be troubleshot.
We have only had problem with garden ops, we have always been able 2 connect before, its just garden ops dosent seem to want to work! I NEED A FIXXX!
Are you in the same house / using the same internet?
Both of you have routers with all the ports forwarded?
http://help.ea.com/en/article/online-ports-to-open-pvz-garden-warfare-pc/
Garden Ops would be the place where most connection issues occur because you're connecting directly to another player(Host).
The playlist game modes are all hosted on the server, so less connection issues will be seen there.
Me an my friend don't live in the same house. We play tons of games together like TF2 and it works just fine. It just this one gamemode that we cant join eachother and we get kicked every time we try to join the other person lobby. We also skype so that tells us our connection together is just fine.
