From David Beaulieu,
Your Guide to Landscaping.
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A. There's a reason they're called rock gardens: the plants clearly share emphasis with the rocks. That takes the pressure off the rock garden plants: they don't need to have the showiness that we expect from standalone plants, because their function is to complement the rocks that surround them. We also expect rock garden plants to be low-maintenance, and forgive them for a certain degree of plainness in the tradeoff. The rock garden plants used to complement the rocks should be selected largely with your climate and other practical considerations in mind -- this will help keep them low-maintenance.

Rock gardens in warm climates call for plants different from those used in colder climates. If you live at high altitudes, you might want to consider to classic alpine rock garden. But if you live in the desert, cacti and other succulents are not only a sensible choice, but blend in beautifully with rocks. If your climate is warm and humid, ferns are an excellent choice; and for a flowering plant, begonias.

In my tutorial on how to build rock gardens, I discuss plant selection for a sample rock garden (photos included).

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