NATCHEZ — Dr. Jim and Ruthie Coy stayed in Natchez long enough to see the show.

Blanketed in blooms of pink, red, purple and white, the city has been awash in color this summer thanks to the hundreds of crape myrtles lining downtown streets.

With one of the state’s champion crape myrtle trees, the Coys have had a front-row seat from their balcony of the antebellum house Bontura.

“The crape myrtles have been spectacular,” Ruthie Coy said.

Each summer the Coys return to their farm in Kentucky, but not before they get to see the crape myrtle and other summer flowers blossom in their Natchez garden each year.

The Coys have been living for 22 years at Bontura, one of Natchez’s landmark houses built in the mid-1850s.

Standing more than 45 feet above the sidewalk on Canal Street, the crape myrtle at Bontura has been a show stopper for residents and tourists traveling up and down Canal Street.

Across the street from the Natchez bluff, passengers from the American Queen and other riverboats have been stopping to take pictures of the massive tree.

Like other crape myrtles in the city, the tree at Bontura has been especially colorful this summer, Ruthie said. The first two weeks of blooms have been impressive, especially for visitors, she said.

“(Riverboat passengers) must have felt like they had paid to be in a botanical garden,” Ruthie said. “They have been beautiful.”

As for the tree at Bontura, Ruthie said she is not sure how old the co-champion tree is. A photograph taken in the 1940s as part of the Historical American Building Survey show the champion tree had already reached a height taller than the neighboring brick building, which is now part of Bowie’s Tavern.

“The tree was already full grown at the time,” Ruthie said. “It had to have been planted by one of the Bontura heirs.”

Since then the tree has continued to grow taller and broader over time. 

When the tree was measured for the Mississippi Forestry Commission’s Champion Tree Program, the tree measured 45 feet tall with a tree trunk circumference of 6 feet, 10 inches.

Using a points system that takes into account the overall measurements of the tree, the Bontura crape myrtle scored so close to two other crape myrtles in Jones County that the three trees share co-champion status.

Ruthie said she does not remember when the tree was named one of the state’s champion trees, but that the tree was on the list before Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Since then, the tree has grown even larger after crews stopped trimming the branches along the sidewalk after power lines along Canal Street were moved, Ruthie said.

“It has been getting gigantic,” Ruthie said.