Can cutting this of make a new branch grow out?

Hello! Very new to all things bonsai and sorry if this is a dumb question, but this tree means a lot to me since it was gifted to me by my friends right after my dad died. so it feels very irreplaceable to me. i’m very nervous that the leaves are shriveling. it was super thirsty the other day so i watered it, probably too much, cause now the soil is quite damp still after a couple days and the leaves still look bad. i’m scared, I can’t lose this plant. i literally call it my dad lol.

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He's Kogi (yes, I gave him a name) and he's my new bonsai, a Chinese pepper tree... I've had 2 in the past (both ficus ginseng) but the second one was given to me sick (he had a fungus or something) and he infected the other one (which I had for 2 or 3 years) and they both died: (... I wanted to try again! Any advice? I've already pruned it a little bit but I have no idea if I should bring it again (the bro has too many leaves Lol). He also drinks a lot of water...I leave in sicily (Italy) and in general I spray demineralized water on the leaves once a day and give the water in the pot every 4 days but he drinks it all in 1 day!

Which one would you chose? 2 photos for every option 1,2,3. And why, please.

I'm new to this, have a few saplings going, a few from seed and some cutting's I've been messing around with.

I had to remove this from a garden area we just cleared. Can I do anything with this? Should I plant in a pot and let it ride until spring? Or can I put it in a ceramic and see how it goes? I'm not even sure if there's enough fine roots.

Thank you!

Will my samplings grow more branches further down the stem. I transplanted these from 2 qtr containers into this bigger pot. I did trim them and so far I’ve only gotten leaves and branches at the very top.

I have a few more still on the grown which I plan to leave there to see how much quicker they will grow

10$ holler at HD just had to trim off all the dead stuff. Hopefully it makes it

Have this 7 years old Podocarpus for 6 months now and in the last few days it started to get very dry even though I water it every day.
Yesterday this white stuff appeared in the base.
What is this? Please help me, I think it might be sick or with some kind of bug.
Thanks in advanced.

PS: This is my first post here, so if I am doing something wrong please tell me. Cheers!

Still a lot of growing needs doing , but I'm happy with this , what do you think of this bonsai ?

It's a ficus ginseng. I know they lose leaves on a whim, but seeing the images side by side is really depressing for me and I'd like to do something to help my plant bounce back. I think I may have overfed it, what do I do if that's the case?