Detaching Foliage from Mesh

Is there a way to make foliage not dependent/linked to a curtain piece of geometry.

For example say I am placing a crowd of people on a sidewalk with the foliage fill tool. It works fine at first, but if that piece of geometry changes upon reloading it model, it will delete the foliage that is link to it.

Is there a way to place foliage using geometry in the scene, but not have it be linked?

Thanks!