The good news is, as long as the little plantlets remain viable, you still have your mom's plant, even if the larger plant doesn't make it, so don't despair. Here are some spider plant tips, and a link below to some basics that should be really helpful for beginners. I really hope you find it helpful. While necrotic leaf tips or margins can occur in this plant from over/under-watering, in fact, it's much more common for the actual cause to be a high level of soluble salts in soils. It's also commonly reported that this plant is particularly intolerant or fluoride, but it's still more common for the cause of leaf burn to be a high level of solubles, to which fluoride can be a contributor, than it is to be fluoride itself. WHEN there is a high level of salts in the soil, low humidity can be a contributor, but low humidity alone rarely presents an issue, it must be in combination with a high level of soluble salts in the soil and either over/under-watering. Of course, you cannot correct the already burned tips (they won't 'heal'), but you can take steps to keep it from happening: A) Most important is to use a soil that drains very freely. This allows you to water copiously, flushing the accumulating salts from the soil each time you water. B) Fertilize frequently when the plant is growing well, but at low doses - perhaps 1/4 the recommended strength. This, in combination with the favorable watering habit described above, will keep soluble salts levels low, and keep levels from rising due to the accumulative effect we always see when we are forced to water in sips when plants are in water-retentive soils. C) When watering, using rainwater, snow melt, water from your dehumidifiers, or distilled water also eliminates the soluble salts in your tap water and will go a long way toward eliminating or minimizing leaf burn. D) If you make your own soils and use perlite, be sure the perlite is rinsed thoroughly, which removes most of the fluorides associated with it's use. E) Allowing water to rest overnight doesn't/won't do anything in the way of helping reduce the amount of fluoride (the compounds are not volatile), and it only helps with chlorine in a very few cases, depending on what method of chlorination was used to treat your tap water; but nearly all municipalities are currently using chlorination compounds that are entirely nonvolatile, which means they won't dissipate into the air. Al Here is a link that might be useful: Some basic care info

NeverGreen - it is a corpse. The violet should have really good drainage and lots of air in the soil. You cannot grow it in soup bowl full of muck. Lets say - all violets you can buy - are propagated from the same mother plants - so they are all clones. The fact that this specific plant is lost - doesn't mean the end of the world - there is plenty of genetically identical plants around. So you can find the same variety or very close to what you had variety and grow it. Growing plants is not a rocket science, you can learn. And your Mother would be proud of you if you will grow a couple of AVs really well to remember her and to remember this first plant. Read FAQs, look at AVSA.org website and get yourself a book in a library. There is know-how to get - and most important - you treat the plant as a living organism trying to create conditions it requires. Like - if you keep fish- you will get them a nice fish tank with filter, air, light, will feed them etc. If you have a cat - you won't try to to stuff him in a fish tank, he has his own preferences and will use his claws to get out of this fish tank. Plant cannot climb out of the unappropriate environment, you need to know beforehand what it will prefer -and then watch to see if it is happy or not - so you can adjust the conditions until it is happy and growing and gratefully blooming for you 10 months out of the year. So in a memory of the one that is lost - learn how to grow another one well. Good Luck with Greening Your Fingers irina

Definitely possible, and you have one of the largest and nicest bamboo nurseries in the Pacific NW available to you: Bamboo Garden of Portland. You sound like you are a little more nervous about bamboo running than you need to be. People who have trouble with bamboo are people who plant it, never do anything to control it, and, after 5-10 years of letting it go, decide that it's a terrible plant. I am in the Seattle area and grow about 80 varieties of bamboo in my yard. Most of the runners are controlled by rhizome (root) pruning, which involves chopping around the circumference of each grove about 1-2 times a year with a pickaxe and chopping off and removing any rhizomes that have advanced beyond the perimeter I want to maintain. You can also go to the work of installing bamboo barrier, which might be advisable if you intend to allow bamboo to grow within several feet of your property line. I have used barrier in my yard in a few key places where the bamboo is within a foot or two of my asphalt driveway and I can't always be sure that I'll intercept stray rhizomes in time that want to dive under my driveway. So I have barrier on one, long side and it wraps in at the ends, but is open on the fourth side, where I just rhizome prune. Rhizome pruning is relatively easy to do because the rhizomes are usually within a maximum of about 10" under the surface, and usually much less. However, if you worry about how beautiful your lawn is (I don't) you will have some visible damage for a while to the grass after you rip out chopped off rhizomes. You don't need to worry about getting all the fragments out of the ground, and many chopped off rhizomes just die anyway. But, if you want to be sure, it's best to pull out the part you've amputated. One other thing to consider is that there are many clumping bamboo that will grow well and be evergreen for you in your location, and this would allow you to avoid worries about invasiveness and bamboo barrier installation. The folks at Bamboo Garden have a nice web site, and it shows how you install barrier if you decide to go that route. They have reasonable prices and are also very knowledgeable, so you will get good, reliable advice on the best bamboo choices for your situation. Here is a link that might be useful: Bamboo Garden

I agree with hemnancy that there is no need to fear runners if you will just commit to a little bit of maintenance a couple times per year. I have a stand over 100 feet long of Phyllostachys Aureosulcata 'Spectabilis' to give me privacy from a warehouse that was built south of my home. The bamboo is in full sun and I live in an area that gets high wind. I dug a narrow trench about 12 - 18" deep on the north side of the planting (I don't care if the bamboo runs to the south). The soil where the bamboo is planted was enriched with mint compost and slightly mounded and I mulch the bamboo with grass clippings every time I mow. The rhizomes stay in this upper layer of better soil (heavy clay below) so I can see them when they reach the trench. Several times a year I just check the trench and clip off any wandering rhizomes. My stand is nearly four years old, very healthy and so far easily managed. The trench can be filled with bark if you don't want an open ditch and you can pull a long-handled hay hook through it to snag any wayward rhizomes.