Is Clarkson an easy area to grow a wide range of garden plants?

Not sure if you are from Oz, but WA has a lot of sun, long dry summers followed by wet season of sporadic heavy rains. Temperature varies from 40c summer to 4c winter, Clarkson specifically has very sandy soil, I'm not much of a gardener but you do need to add plenty of extra water over summer. In our garden and locally I've seen plenty of firs, pines, palms, frangipani, roses, birds of paradise, succulents, grass trees, gums, pansy, lemons, olives, passion fruit, ferns, lavinder, Lilly's, cheese plants. I'd suggest that these are the hardy ones that don't need much looking after - happy gardening :)