xmas blooms

I'm not exactly the best at keeping plants alive.  I certainly have the aspirations to be a wonderful gardener but somewhere along the lines I neglect or over water whatever greenery I have and it dies.  I do get lucky once in a while and produce the most wonderful blooms like this stunning red flower I got in a bulb kit for xmas:

Isn't it lovely? I was pretty impressed with the kit - and even though I didn't plant it until many months after xmas, it still managed to grow! and flourish even! To make things even more impressive, my sister received the same bulb kit and her flower did not grow (and she's usually super good with plants)! Ok...so her bulb probably died on her trip home to the far reaches of the arctic circle (a smidge of an exaggeration perhaps) and the icy cold temperatures may have been too much for poor little bulb to handle. 

I am super curious how anyone gets plants like these to grow straight. I rotated her little pot as she grew (since she would lean towards the sun) but that didn't appear to make any difference. Look how crooked this gal is:

Well...perhaps that isn't the most convincing picture but I assure you the long leaves shoot out in one direction and the stem and flowers lean in the other. Oh well. It just gives her more character! It also makes me want to try to grow more bulbs next year! I'm stuck container gardening for now since I live in a condo but it would be super awesome to have some nice little spring bulb flowers on the patio! Does anyone have any experience with gardening out there? Do bulbs even grow in pots outside?