Plotting a time series with shaded regions

Hi I want plot a time series (see below) with shade strips in the background. For example, if the data belongs to 1998, add a light grey strip behind the line. If it belongs to 1999, add a darker grey stripe behind the line and so on. I would also like to have a text box on each strip indicating the period of time. It seems to be a very challenging task for me. can someone help me?

thanks very much.

    '6/01/1998'     [  5.41]
    '9/01/1998'     [5.0933]
    '12/01/1998'    [  4.39]
    '3/01/1999'     [4.6633]
    '6/01/1999'     [  4.88]
    '9/01/1999'     [  5.16]
    '12/01/1999'    [5.6067]
    '3/01/2000'     [6.1867]
    '6/01/2000'     [6.2167]
    '9/01/2000'     [  6.13]
    '12/01/2000'    [   5.9]
    '3/01/2001'     [4.5967]
    '6/01/2001'     [  3.78]

Answer 1

[Yao Li]

time='6/01/1998';
fwd_slash_loc=strfind(time,'/');
year=time(fwd_slash_loc(2)+1:end);