Beginner Gardening: Help with my yard full of rocks!, 1 by Iluvmygarden

Iluvmygarden wrote:
Ok I am not sure where to post this thread but here it goes, for now anyway...I know people pay thousands of dollars for the advice of professional landscapers, but I am going to try to get some almost free advice right here from all of you wonderful, knowledgeable people.
I am starting from scratch. My husband and I just bought a brand new house 2 months ago, and there is not a scrap of landscaping done. Exciting for me!! I am thrilled to be starting my own gardens and yard, though I am scared it will all to start to feel a little overwhelming. Right now my yard is nothing but rocks (we got all of the HUGE ones cleared out, but we are right by a river so there are plenty more medium and small ones left!!) , and we have quite a bit of free "topsoil", but it too, has some rocks, and I fear it is not very good quality. I am wondering what the best mix of topsoil would be for me to buy, to add in with the free stuff to make it into a better quality. I am planning a small vegetable garden, perrenial gardens x 4 or 5, shade gardens(for the front of the house) as well as trees such as corkscrew hazel, kousa dogwood, eastern redbud and of course A LAWN!! I know each of these areas will probably like a different mix of soil in each, so I just need to know what a very good general mix of topsoil should contain for my "base".
Also wondering if it would be ok to leave the majority of the rocks (except for the biggest) and just put my good mixture of topsoil to an approx. depth of 6-8 inches on top? Will this work? Or will the rocks underneath just eventually find their way back up to the surface?...Help! I am feeling overwhelmed already!!! I am not totally new to the gardening scene, but I am not nearly as knowledgable as some people I have met :) Please, any advice at all is most welcome!! I am very excited to get the chance to do my own landscaping and the plants themselves, I can handle, I just need some help with the first baby steps !! :-)
I will include a few pics just in case anyone is interested.......Thank You!