title: Use subplots to zoom into timeseries or how I can draw lines outside of axis borders
body: <p>I would like to generate a plot like this with matplotlib</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.imagenetz.de/img.php?file=37d8879009.jpg&amp;pid=" rel="noreferrer">timescale http://www.imagenetz.de/img.php?file=37d8879009.jpg&amp;pid=</a></p>
  
  <p>Currently I just do the 3 subplots with matplotlib and add the red lines in inkscape.
  I found out that I can create the dashed rectangles with <a href="http://matplotlib.org/api/artist_api.html#matplotlib.patches.Rectangle" rel="noreferrer"><code>Rectangle</code></a>.</p>
  
  <pre><code>ax.add_patch(Rectangle((25, -1.4), 3, 1.3, edgecolor='red',
                         fill=False, linestyle='dashed'))
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I haven't found anything yet to draw the lines connecting the plots. Is there a function that can draw across axis borders?</p>