budget & eco-friendly meditative/Zen, Japanese, high desert garden

Creating an eco-friendly and budget-friendly Japanese Zen garden in your high desert yard may be easier than you think.
Your space can be small and consist of in ground or raised garden beds or container plants. It helps to pick a spot that receives some protective shade (provided by trees and/or the side of your home) during the day.

You can include small sized shrubs, trees, ground covers, perennials; river stones; a small water fountain; bamboo; a small statue; landscape solar lighting; stepping stones; and outdoor seating. More often than not, muted or understated color characterizes Japanese Zen garden themes.
To cut both costs and maintenance (such as watering and weeding) times you can use:
• compost (and/or other appropriate soil amendment) and mulch for in ground gardens,
• for container gardens – potting soil and recycled black, dark or neutral colored plant pots/containers,
• small (seedling or quart) sized ground covers (such as Periwinkle – Vinca minor, Creeping Thyme, Woolly Thyme, and low growing junipers) and perennial plants (such as irises, daylilies, daffodils and tulips),
• 1 gallon sized broadleaf and coniferous evergreen and deciduous trees and shrubs,
• quart or 1 gallon sized grasses (such Maiden hair, blue fescue, Mexican Feather grass,
• 6ft x 16ft bamboo screen rolls for privacy,
• small (table top) water fountain to provide calming, trickling water sounds and to muffle neighboring noises,
• small Buddha, yoga frog, turtle, or other statue or outdoor figurine,
• river pebbles, rocks and cobblestones,
• 4 or 6 pack solar landscape lights,
• stepping stones from flat rock naturally found in your area or concrete stepping stones from your local nursery, and
• outdoor seating such as a bench or chairs.

Of course, you can add or subtract elements as it suits you. However, the overall effect should result in a meditative, calming, soothing effect rather than that of stimulating or energizing produced by other garden types.