Abstract: A manual plant setting device that enables a gardener to set plants into the ground from a standing position without the need to bend or stoop, having a base plate with a short spud extending downwardly therefrom to be pressed into the soil to form a hole to receive the root ball of a plant to be set in the ground, an elongate plant guide, connected at one end to the base plate offset from the spud and extending upwardly from the base plate, in which a plant is placed and allowed to slide smoothly down the plant guide to the hole prepared to receive the root ball, and a handle interconnected to the opposite end of the plant guide for holding and manipulating the device. In the method of the invention the spud is pressed into the soil to form a hole, a plant is placed in the plant guide and allowed to slide smoothly down the plant guide and into the prepared hole, and the spud is used to place and lightly tamp soil around the root ball of the plant.