I'm fortunate enough not to have to dig dahlias up for winter, but unfortunate enough to have gophers that adore dahlias, so I grow only a few in containers.
The best dahlia garden I've ever seen was close to the beach in San Francisco. Oddly enough, the dahlias coped beautifully with fog every day and lots of salt in the air.
Incidentally, the name for Dahlia in Russian is Georgin, similar to the German name, but a masculine noun, in contrast to other countries' feminine names for this genus.
