Garden Locations
Market Garden
At the center of the Garden Center map is the market Garden, sitting atop the central building of the map. As with all the Garden Ops maps, central Garden locations have a major weakness: zombies can attack from multiple directions. If you set up at the market Garden, you can expect enemies to attack from the park, the warehouse, and the shopping center to the south of the market building.
The saving grace here is that the market Garden is at the top of a building, which can only be accessed by enemies willing to climb the stairs [1] [2] that connect directly to the building, or using the upper-level bridges that can be accessed by other stairways in the alleys [3] [4]. Of course, Foot Soldier Zombies can simply jump up to the market rooftop. Still, the design of this Garden location allows a team of four players to hold down chokepoints with relative ease.
Park Garden
While Gardens’ placed at the edges of a map don’t have to face pincer assaults to the same extent that central Gardens do, the park Garden here is much easier for the zombies to reach compared to the market Garden, and it can be a lot harder on later waves to set up good chokepoints. There are three general routes zombies can take to reach the Garden.
[5] The first approach is right down the center, to either side of the park fountain. The greatest concentration of Potted Plants are found on this path, which can help tear up incoming zombies while you hold position on the raised seating areas to either side of the path [6].
[7] [8] The northern and southern approaches to the Garden consist of a pair of narrow paths that connect to the main street, and also connect to the central route through the park. Cactus players can do a lot of good by setting up Tall-nut Battlements and Potato Mines on these flanking routes.
Mendoza Garden
This Garden is considerably easier to defend during earlier waves, as there are fewer routes for zombies to take. However, the relatively confined space of this area means that once the zombies do break past your outer defenses, they don’t have far to go to reach the Garden.
[9] The south approach to the Garden is the hardest to protect, as it is the largest path the zombies can take. More often than not, disastrous breakthroughs will start from here.
[10] The central approach is narrow enough that two Cactus players can lock it down by themselves with smart Tall-nut and Potato Mine placement. This can slow down the typical zombie wave that attacks through this alley. You can then let other members of the team concentrate on other routes, perhaps leaving one plant on guard duty to work with the Potted Plants you can set in front of the alley.
[11] The northern alley is a bit tougher to defend, and its Potted Plant placement is a bit haphazard. Plants that are guarding this route will likely need to place themselves closer to the alleys around the central market building to intercept zombies before they break through.