Who is Rachel de Thames’ husband? Meet her 4 Daughters.

Rachel de Thame has always come across like the steady hand in Britain’s gardening TV world—the person who can walk into the chaos of Chelsea Flower Show and somehow make it feel soothing. That calm isn’t an act. It’s been built over decades of reinvention, a career that spans broadcasting, writing, design work, and live events—and a personal health scare that quietly reshaped the way she talks about gardens, time, and what really matters.

Before audiences knew her as a Gardeners’ World favourite, Rachel’s first dream was ballet. She trained at the Royal Ballet School, only to have her path knocked off course by glandular fever as a teenager. In the years that followed, she worked across creative fields—drama studies, art-related work, even a period of modelling and screen work—before returning to the passion she says she inherited from her father: plants, outdoor space, and the deep pull of growing things. That pivot became the start of the career that would define her public life.

Rachel’s break into gardening television came after training at the English Gardening School and then landing a role on BBC Two’s Gardeners’ World. She has been part of the show’s on-screen team since 1999, sometimes appearing more regularly and at other times popping up for features and filmed segments—especially after becoming a mum again. Her TV résumé extends beyond Gardeners’ World too: she fronted BBC series including Small Town Gardens and Gardening with the Experts, and she’s also been connected to ITV’s Countrywise, alongside plenty of RHS flower-show coverage that keeps her in front of viewers year after year.

If you’ve seen her most recently, there’s a reason for that: Rachel hasn’t “left TV.” In fact, she continues to be billed as a Gardeners’ World presenter at BBC Gardeners’ World events, and she remains a key part of the BBC’s RHS coverage. Gardens Illustrated’s presenter announcement for the 2025 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, for example, listed Rachel alongside Monty Don and Arit Anderson for the prime-time BBC Two broadcasts. And outside the studio, she’s remained visibly active on the speaking-and-events circuit, including BBC Gardeners’ World Live line-ups.

Husband and Kids

Her current husband is Gerard de Thame, who is described in industry and arts profiles as an award-winning director in commercial filmmaking, with a strong fine-art background. Trade coverage around his signing with commercial production company Mutt Film notes he’s credited with more than 500 advertisements and is known for highly visual storytelling. Separate arts references also identify him as an artist (painter/sculptor) born in 1958, with study at Brighton Polytechnic and Chelsea School of Art, and a Rome Scholarship listed in his biography—details that help explain why his creative world overlaps so naturally with Rachel’s own design-minded, visually driven approach to gardens.

Rachel’s first marriage was to Stephen Colover, described in at least one widely circulated interview excerpt as a photographer, and the two share two children together. While Rachel doesn’t frequently spotlight her older children in press interviews, her family details surface now and then in longer lifestyle features. In a 2015 report, The Guardianstated she had two children aged 26 and 23 from her first marriage, and two daughters aged 11 and nine from her second marriage—an unusually “two lives in one” family timeline that explains why she often talks about juggling seasons of motherhood alongside filming.

More recently, a 2024 interview excerpt published via magazine distribution platforms names all four of her children and gives their ages at the time: Lauren (34) and Joe (32) from her first marriage to Stephen Colover, and Emma (20) and Olivia (18) from her marriage to Gerard de Thame. Those details line up with what Rachel has long implied about her home life: she’s navigated both the “grown kids” phase and the “school run” phase under the same roof, at different points in her television career.

Of her children, Lauren is the most publicly visible because her work overlaps with Rachel’s professional world. Multiple interviews and book-related features describe Lauren as an illustrator/botanical artist who collaborated with her mother on A Flower Garden for Pollinators, a project that effectively turned their family bond into a creative partnership. That mother-daughter collaboration has been presented less like a celebrity “family brand” moment and more like a natural extension of how Rachel talks about gardening itself—something passed down, shared, and shaped by time spent together.

Rachel has also given the public small but telling glimpses of the realities behind the serene on-screen image. One of the most widely repeated anecdotes is the Chelsea Flower Show breastfeeding incident, which The Guardian reported in 2015 while discussing how she managed work and parenting. In that piece, the emphasis isn’t scandal—it’s the practical friction that can appear when a high-profile job meets real-life motherhood, even in a world as outwardly gentle as gardening television.