Weed The Cactus??

Have you ever weeded a cactus? Me either! However this is depressing! The cactus seems to be at a stalemate, The part you see on here is just a small part of the much bigger plant,being about 6 sprouts if you will which take up about a 3-5 ft, area,then there are 2 other kinds of cactus in the cactus garden,which are of small tree size! I had the bright idea that maybe the "dead" leaves were taking the strength of the plant..does that make sense?..and so i "weeded"it oucchhh!! HOwever it's done..sort of I removed quite a bit old brown leaves,so we'll see.This plant was moved from the front of my house to the back to where the other cactus are,I couldn't move them! maybe it's still shocked ? I do have pictures from when it was in the front,so I can at least show you what it shoukd look like..but we'll wait a few days!