Starting a garden from scratch - need lots of tips.

Hello everybody, I'm completely new to this forum and also to gardening. My husband and I are in the middle of building our new home (will be completed in March next year) and now I need to start thinking about the garden. We live in Switzerland and is the climate is very similar to the UK (where I am from).I have always lived in a city and although I've cultivated many potted plants gardens are very new for me.

I have just picked up some gardening magazines but I am also on the look out for some good books to help me choose plants and shrubs. Can anyone make any suggestions. 

We have a stream that borders our property and we can not do anything to the land on our side of it (for 2 meters) so it will look a bit 'wild' which is great because I like the idea of an unstructured garden with  flowering shrubs and evergreens to give privacy. I just have no idea where to start...... any pointers or recommendations of books, TV shows etc would be greatly appreciated.