How can I transform rockery into somthing contemporary

[tracyk]

New house with 'cottagey' rockery. Huge massive rocks - so no chance of removing. But can I remove the existing plants and put in some more contemporary ones? any ideas? Fairly sunny, sheltered (in Scotland) with decent soil.

What about grasses? You can get the blackish ones and others, their contempory. You can get all sorts of different textures and sizes.

Or palms?

Or bamboos?

I'm guessing you've already got alpines there.

One of our rockeries is just different grasses - very pretty & minimal maintenance. We have the huge rocks & purplish slate pieces which look pretty all year round.

hmmm think I might go and get some grasses for my rockery

I was thinking of either grasses or phormium sp?
The rocks are really nice and chunky - I might also investigate a water feature of a column of granite type stuff for the centre and then a few plants around it. The driveway is large reddy chippings - do you think I should fill the gaps in the rockery with slate or the reddy chippings?

maybe you could add a couple of those aluminium balls to it. Would make it look very contemporary, and add a bit of reflection/dimension. when the light shines on them they look really nice.