Get the book 'Roses for Dummies'

They are undoubtedly tall and splindly because they haven't been pruned in a long time. Winter protection may not be an issue--it is quite likely that any winter tender varieties have already been culled by mother nature. The buds are small because the weather is now too cold for rose blooms--it is the end of the season.

You may want to contact someone in a local rose society to assess what you have, and inform you of the level of care needed for those roses. While old garden roses (once blooming) and the latest shrub roses are often disease resistant, many modern roses need to be sprayed with a fungicide to do their best.

Here is a link that might be useful: Greater Rochester Rose Society

Try to protect those canes through winter. Snow is good insulation.
Next spring, you can see if you've got roses that survived that are modern roses, or if you've got rootstock. Now the rootstocks aren't always a bad thing; they're strong and the do survive all over the eastern USA.

The orange things you're seeing now are hips. Those enclose the seeds made by the blooms earlier this year. A lot of folks will use hip color as a planning aid for the otherwise dreary days of winter.

Restoring the bed should begin with the soil. If you have access to horse manure, load up some garbage cans with it and lay 4 inches over the beds, keeping it pulled away from the roses a little. Water from melting snow and winter rains will wash the nutrients into the underlying soil. Next spring work it into the soil. Your roses should show some immediate results from this.
Not knowing where in Western NY you are located, go the the site linked below to find a rose society that may be closer than Rochester. A contact e-mail and phone number is listed for each.
If you'll e-mail me, I send you a list of New York Consulting Rosarians. One may be close to you and willing to give you instruction on pruning your roses next spring.
'Roses for Dummies' is a good easy to understand book.
If neglected for many years, there's a good chance any roses left are hardy or they'd have died long ago.
With proper pruning next spring, the roses should bush out and if you get flowers right away, it will indicate they've not reverted to root stock.

Here is a link that might be useful: NY rose societies

This sounds like an exciting project-- it was once a very loved garden and will probably respond to your care.

--Would love to see pictures of your progress

Florence

Hard pruning and generous feeding could do the trick. Sometimes the soil turns acidy over time, so some garden lime (Dolomit stuff) could help.
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As it seems to be an older garden I wondered how much sun those roses get. If trees near by have grown very large and block all the sun you have a problem.

Otherwise there shouldn`t be a probleme. New shoots or canes of proper roses/cultivars are often dark red and shiny, root stock shoots (like Rosa canina) often plain green. Just so you dont cut off the right new growth :-)

Good luck, Lin