title: Format x-axis on chart created with pandas plot method
body: <p>pandas.DataFrame.plot is a convenient method for plotting data from dataframes.  However, I don't understand how to format the axes using this method.  For example,</p>
  
  <pre><code>import pandas as pd
  import datetime
  
  df = pd.DataFrame(index =  [datetime.datetime(2016, 7, 2, 0, 0),
                      datetime.datetime(2016, 8, 6, 0, 0),
                      datetime.datetime(2016, 9, 13, 0, 0),
                      datetime.datetime(2016, 10, 26, 0, 0),
                      datetime.datetime(2016, 11, 2, 0, 0)],
                      data = {'total' : [5, 3, 1, 0, 2]})
  
  df
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Output</p>
  
  <pre><code>          total
  2016-07-02  5
  2016-08-06  3
  2016-09-13  1
  2016-10-26  0
  2016-11-02  2
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now plotting with the pandas plot method:</p>
  
  <pre><code>df.plot(kind='bar')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/peigU.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/peigU.png" alt="example bar chart"></a></p>
  
  <p>I would prefer that the x-axis just have the labels as the three-letter format of month - Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov.</p>
  
  <p>Is this possible with the pandas plot method or should I build a chart with matplotlib instead?</p>