Vertical oriented labels on plot

I am using manual Xticks and XTickLabel to get strings on the ticks, but how can I change the label orientation to vertical? (the strings (dates and serial numbers) are long)

Is there a way to get to more handles/properties for these objects?

Answer 1

[Doug Hull]

How does this file for rotating x-tick labels work for you?

[David Dougherty]

Nice!