Leave it alone. Hope it doesn't freeze off.

Dead wood can be pruned close to the base if you do not see any leaf out by mid-May. That is an at worst scenario and usually applies to pants in their first year of being planted. Yours should definitely leaf out much earlier but it is ok to wait. The lazy approach to identify dead wood is to wait. You can also use your nails to scratch the stems and see if you notice green or not. You can leave blooms from 2014 for winter interest or you can cut the string that attaches the bloom to the stem. That is called deadheading and you can read more about it in Method 1 of the link below, under Removing Old Blooms. These could produce blooms so better leave them alone until June. And if you have any dead stems during the growing season, feel free to cut them at any time. When time comes to prune in June 2015, you can give them a buzz and cut the stems by a quarter or in half. The plant will then trigger some new growth and invisibe flower buds at the 'new' ends of the stems. From those flower buds, you will get blooms in Spring 2016. Other people cut 1/3 of the longest stems down to the ground on Year 1, the second longest get cut in Year 2 and the rest on Year 3. It is called rejuvenating and is done every 5-10 years when you notice bloomage problems in terms of size and number. Luis PS - I would do a soil test, even if you end up using those cheap soil test kits, to see how the nitrogen/phosphorus/potassium levels are. This post was edited by luis_pr on Mon, Jan 19, 15 at 20:02

Definitions of what constitutes a tree do vary, but often a serious single stem or other signs of a definite arboreal bent are considered requirements. For instance, may area has camellias and rhododendrons double and more the height of the Loropetalum shown above. Yet few, if any of these can really be considered true trees because they do not have even one stem that is a genuine trunk of some heft and straightness. And that extends up into or through the canopy for much distance. Mulling this over now I suppose one way to think of it might be if you could make lumber out of at some point, it is a tree.

Here's an old post from Houzz that may help you, while you wait for others to chime in - https://www.houzz.com/discussions/1601921/loropetalum-bright-red-leaf-color-problem