Peter Coats was a garden designer, writer and photographer active in the 20th century.
Coats grew up in Ayrshire, Scotland and was educated at Eton College in England. Prior to his service in the Middle East and India during World War Two, he had a career in advertising. After the war Coats began to write and lecture on the subject of horticulture and to photograph gardens. Later opening his own practice he began to concentrate on designing gardens, both large and small, in the UK and abroad. Coats also designed garden buildings as well as garden furniture, often with Chinoiserie motifs and Indian influences, and advised on scented plants for gardens for the blind.
He was the gardening editor of House & Garden. His published books include: Roses (1962), Great Gardens of Britain (1963), Flowers in History (1970), Garden Decoration (1970), Plants for Connoisseurs (1974), his autobiography Of Generals and Gardens (1976), The Gardens of Buckingham Palace (1978), an A-Z of Plants (1979) and Of Kings and Cabbages (1984).
Sources:
Hadfield, Miles, et. al., British Gardeners: A Biographical Dictionary (London: A. Zwemmer, 1980), pp. 70-71.